
Book_,_- __ 



A 



TABLEAU 



OF 



FRENCH LITERATURE 



Cljt etff&terntlj Ccntwv. 
By M. DE BARANTE, 

PEER OF FRANCE. 



TRANSLATED PROM THE FOURTH EDITION, 

AND AUGMENTED BY 
TABLE OK CONTENTS, WITH A NOMENCLATURE OF THE |, 
CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED. 



LONDON: 
SMITH, ELDER AND CO., CORNHILL. 

1833. 



« 



ar 



* 



A NV 



Mp 



J\ 



PREFACE 

TO 

THE THIRD EDITION, 

WRITTEN IN 1822. 



It is now nearly twenty years since the French 
Institute proposed, as a prize subject, " A Lite- 
rary Tableau of the Eighteenth Century/ 1 Its 
manifest intention was, that in forming a list 
of the great names belonging to that era, the 
competitors should be confined to a strictly cri- 
tical work. They had, therefore, not only to 
examine the literary taste of the century just 
finished, but it was further necessary to compare it, 
in this respect, with anterior times, and to discover 
what new forms the powers of thought had adopted. 
a 2 



Thus i u wed, the subject becami 

The competition remained open for many years: 
at length, the prize was obtained by two very dis- 
lished writers, (M. Jay and M, Fabre,) who, 
Bning themselves within the terms of the pro- 
wrote sufficient to prove that they would 
willingly haw extended the picture. In truth, it 
hard to confine, to a mere literary discussion, 
the examination of a host of witnesses in the 
I h of human intellect, at a moment when that 
ch had become so rapid and so fertile in great 
nts. 

Without doubt, we may apply here the words of 
illustrious academician, spoken the following 
, in the bosom of that assembly in which he 
about to take his place. 
" Other times, other manners. Inheritors of a 
aceable years, our happy fore- 
were abh to give themselves up to discus- 

19 purely academical, which proves no less tl 

its than then- happiness. But we, the unfortu- 
nate I storm, have no longer that. 
enjoy so perfect a calm, 
a different course. The man 



PREFACE. V 

has taken place of the academician ; and, de- 
prived of the writings of those who could prove its 
vanity, we only see through this strong conviction 
the greater evidence of our adversity. 

" What ! after a revolution, which, in a few years, 
made us survey the events of many centuries, shall 
we forbid the writer all moral reflections ; shall vn 
prohibit him from examining the serious side of 
affairs ; shall he pass a frivolous life, occupied in 
vrrammatical cavils upon rules of syntax, and insig- 
nificant sentences of no moment ; shall he grow 
old in the swaddling-clothes of his cradle ; shall 
he never, while he lives, exhibit the brow furrowed 
by long toil, by grave thoughts, and often by 
manly griefs, which add to a man's greatness ? 

" What, then, shall be the important cares that 
will render his hairs grey ? — The miserable anxie- 
ties of self-love, and the trifling occupations of 
childish pastimes. 

The work, of which we give a new edition, was 
composed at first for the competition ; but the 
author, perceiving that he had not the talent necessary 
to illustrate such a subject within such confined 

* Speech, on the admittance of M. de Chateaubriand. 



¥1 ruri.u 

limits aother plan, and sought to unite 

ature with the state of society — a point of 
which Beemed to him the more desirable, inas- 
much as literature had never been thus treated 
►re. 
Under an absok rnment, where each body 

v class of the nation, find them- 
prived of their legitimate part in the regu- 
i of public affairs, literature, by constraint, 
becomes an organ of opinion, an element of the 
poli; I it ut ion. In default of regular insti- \ 

tutions, literature becomes one. So, under the I 
power of a dominant clergy, trembling before a \ 
controversy so glorious and salutary for the church, 
philosophy, having no further communion with re- 
ligion, became atheistical. 

Thus the interests of society, instead of incorpo- 
nd communicating to each other perpetual 
life — a vigour unceasingly renewed — had been every 
day undermined and destroyed at their very roots, 
d as .1 dreadful decay had been the consequence 
of the unjust and unreasonable position of things 
under a government which nothing could enlighten 
nor imp had been considered the 



PREFACE. Vll 

means whereby its only visible enemy had wrought 
its ruin. 

It was wanting that support that the edifice 
fell ; and yet the disaster was ascribed to that 
voice which itself had stifled. It is important, 
therefore, to shew that the course of genius had 
not been an accidental circumstance, which one 
can blame or deplore, but that it had reference to 
the internal constitution of France. The author of 
this outline discovers in literature only the symp- 
toms of the common malady, the signs of dissolu- 
tion ; and will endeavour to consider this peculiar 
point of a question so extended. 

Doubtless, it had been more agreeable and more 
instructive to settle freely upon the whole question, 
and to treat historically of the government of 
France during the eighteenth century : it would 
have been seeking the evil at its source. If, in 
pursuing the enquiry, one had had to accuse the 
guilty, it had certainly been those men who, having 
disposed of power, had had more influence, and, 
consequently, more responsibility. If, on the con- 
trary, it were seen that those also had been merely 
under the yoke of necessity, then it would have 



dful i" have shewn equal indulge 
them as to others. But, 
. sperience, and knowledge, frhich an enterprise 
lofty required ; it yet would have had some- 
thing to blame in seeking to paint the vices of an 
which had been chastened by so direful a ca- 
tastrophe. It would have been to disturb the ashes 
. 1 1 smoking. Besides, during times of 
political discord, various interests and opinions 
take >ng a form, and become so personal, 

that one can judge but little without offend 
and general reflections are sometimes 

gh they had been connected with tin 

nanus of individuals. So despotic power, which, 

time, suppressed party, and suspended con- 

l, would not allow the opportunity of political 

I i oversy. 

It was another thing when the examination of the 
of the eighteenth century might become 
aeral discussion. 
When an open opinion upon politics was inter- 

• vru an examination of the rights and 
the Eiation in bygone times, was for- 
bidden ; it was under the transparent veil of lite- 
rary polemics that envy, hatred and malice, con- 



PREFACE. IX 

tinned to manifest themselves. The opinions and 
interests united with the ancient order, with the 
freedom taken by absolute power, attacked this 
literature as the only cause of the Revolution ; 
while, on the contrary, the principles and interests 
belonging to the new order of things, thinking that 
liberty was the best token of security to institutions 
and civil rights, defended this literature with all 
its power. To carry back the question where it 
really was, and to discuss both literature and po- 
litics, became an act of freedom ; it was calling 
things by their right names, and dispensing a right 
to be impartial. In shewing that letters had been 
conformed to the state of society, one could, with- 
out injustice, include in the blame those who 
would not admit such recognition ; and, in di- 
vesting oneself of a factitious and superstitious 
respect for the administration which had governed 
France till the Revolution, and saying frankly 
that it had been iniquitous and frivolous ; one is 
equally authorized to say that it had been attacked 
in a manner quite as frivolous and a thousand 
times more iniquitously. Such was the spirit in 
which this work was projected. The author was 
then young, too young, perhaps, for such a sub- 



I PREFACE. 

But in reviewing now that which was written 
in times bo different to the present epoch, he may 
be permitted to say that he experiences great 
taction in being able to reprint the same state- 
ments as then expressed. Above all, there seems 
to him little difference in the essential character 
of a passing and transient dominion, whatever be 
lat or its fallacy. 
A man with some intelligence, who may have 
the spirit of his times, with talent that he may dis- 
play, may serve as a docile instrument, and, having 
neither power nor interest in change, will not alter 
his course. When a nation has been so com- 
pletely dissolved and renewed, it is not in the 
power of a man's hand or of his own will to re- 
constitute ; for when social order cannot be re- 
iblished hut by a new agreement of the citizens 
among themselves, upon new ideas relative to pro- 
i> neither legislator nor conqueror who 
can flatter himself to lay the foundation suddenly 
that which is perhaps the work of time, viz. civil 
order without violence, and a calm without oppres- 
Absolute power, which was for the time 
iblishedj was then nothing more than a delay, 



PREFACE. XI 

of the development and regular classification of the 
real elements of society. 

What are the modes, fashions, institutions, 
manners, ideas, which should form the actual 
conflict, and compose the moral constitution of 
civilized people ? This was the question that 
the author put to himself on finishing the work. 
He could repeat that question now ; though in 
truth it would be vain to expect a prompt solution 
of so great a difficulty. 

Who could hope to see the world on a given 
day assume a new aspect ? It acts not by its 
knowledge whether more or less right should be 
granted to the citizen — if more or less security 
should be taken against the abuses and incapacity 
of governors ; it acts not even by learning whe- 
ther the remembrances and affections attached to 
the ancien regime shall have a greater share in the 
government than the remembrances and affections 
invariably belonging to the present state of things. 
These are, indeed, formidable difficulties, able to 
produce again new convulsions and equally pre- 
vent the desired denouement. But, perhaps, there 
are more fundamental causes, that one cannot 



\ii n;rr.\i 

help regarding with an eye of fear. It seems that 

ie may never appear, and that our situation 
be unknown ami unheard of in the history of 
the times. 

Ever in truth is it to happen that all power, all 
\1 pre-eminence (which are the indispensable 
i is to establish order in a nation, even when 
order is built upon reason and justice), can 
lenly be annihilated and forgotten ? Ever 
is it to happen that the only title to promotion 
and maintenance may have' been real merit, 
utility, courage, influence ; that they may have 
had to force their way painfully through all the 
sions of men ? Ever is the principle of au- 
thority to be seen stripped of all previous sanction, 
deprived of all precedent, submitting to a daily 
examination, controlled by every private intei 
nor imposing by any illusion ? Can the system 
of power overcome the evil propensities of the 
human heart ; <uhdue envy which never can bear 
nee the clamor of personal in- 
terest ; furnish employment to the active ; food to 
the imagination ; i icious ; convince 

ell as tli.' enlightened; and the 
the population at the same time with tin 



PREFACE. XU1 



elite among the citizens? In a word, society being 
dissolved, can it, knowing the cause, ever re- 
compose itself ? Does it contain within itself the 
germ of social order ? Can it there throw forth 
roots, grow, and become fertile ? There have been 
years when one might have said to oneself sorrow- 
fully, " Is it then despotism which shall solve the 
problem ? Can it be that which has subdued us 
by force, reduced and subjugated the imagination, 
broken the will, weakened the sentiment, and re- 
duced it to a mere personal interest? Are nations 
only destined to find an uncertain and precarious 
calm under their degrading vicissitude ? Is order 
nothing more than the apathy of the people who 
allow it, — mute spectators pushed onwards like a 
vile drove by one power or another ? And whe- 
ther revolutions commence in the bosom of the 
palace, or in the camp of the soldier, do they cease 
to be calamities ? This or that equally exclude 
citizens from all direct interference in the discus- 
sion of their public affairs." 

The prosperity and success of the Imperial go- 
vernment were able to create fears, but less again 
than the state of France, the weariness of spirit, 
and the superstitious fancy for equality so favour- 



\iv PREFACE. 

able to absolute 4 power. The chief basis of des- 
potism was above all, the security with which all 
those who bad brought about the Revolution re- 

1 under a dominion created by themselves; and 
to which they were bound by private rather thai) 
ral interest. 
The restoration came to raise better hopes in 
se who had little faith in the favours of abso- 
lute power. Then a new combination presented 
If. One part seeing the re-appearance of the 
royal family, who, by their name, seemed to call 
to mind the old state of society, and perceiv- 
the same time, that no part of the wreck 
could be recovered ; that it had no means of re- 
union to place them in their former situation ; that 
manners, ideas, the general current remained the 
same; many of their illusions were dissipated, many 
mad hopes vanished ; they began to form some 
force of things, and to consider the Re- 
volution no more as an accident, or the work of 
this or thai individual. On the other hand, all the 
pride and interests which had their protection 
under the new form of things, those who were 
in voluntary accomplices of an absolute au- 
thority, had an indispensable lack of justice, lived 



PREFACE. XV 

under mistrust and precaution, and implored li- 
berty instead of dwelling in the community with 
power. 

This situation brings us to the trials we have 
made, during the late years, of a deliberate and 
popular form of government ; and so far as this, 
in regulations and mechanism, it has not badly 
succeeded. In spite of the vacillations, more 
harassing to the thoughtful mind than to the mass 
of population, France could enjoy peace and a 
growing prosperity. 

But notwithstanding one must say, with a doubt 
less painful, indeed, than under the preceding go- 
vernment, that nothing yet gives us the idea of 
firmness nor of that which may be. The forms of a 
government are nothing, if they are not the ex- 
pression of the manners, the belief, the confidence 
of a people. It must have a soul for all material 
causes, and that soul is not yet come to animate 
our new political machine. That enlightened 
minds, a certain elite of the nation, have given 
themselves up to the inquiry, only to surrender 
themselves to the rational conviction, that free 
discussion may not be forbidden to any ; but 
that there must be a sort of stamp for the 



\\l PRE] 

current opinions, habits, and affections, that may- 
be i on trust throughout the country. That 

3 imperative that there be authorities and pre- 
eminence ted with some moral force; but 

that tliey may not make daily experiment of the 
reality of their power. 

We are vet far from this moral restoration, and 
perhaps the present generation is not destined t;> 

its accomplishment ; above all, if new troubles 
iin, there will be a total overthrow of opi- 
nions. At this moment, in spite of much noise and 
win. we are torn by doubts; many there 

who try to make converts by the violence 
clamour. No one is sure that right forms the ; 
of hi , in, One 18 so oi ived by men 

that one would assert one's opinion — 

KJU* au feu exelusivement ; " as Montaigl 

It is to tl [instance we owe the: repose we 

i a surprised to cum 

i becomes a witness to the St 
It prait petus to be given it. 

Jt Bi the route it ought to travel. It has 

ban the mutable d i' human 

lost its credit; it 
re, when tociatiens shall - [ 



PREFACE. XV11 

been created. It is this manner of viewing events 
and their results, which was at the time a reproach 
to the author. He was taxed with fatalism. He 
cannot admit the imputation. All his fatalism con- 
sists in his best efforts to find out the union of 
effects and causes, and the connection of the de- 
tails with the whole. In this inquiry the idea 
results, that when communications between men 
become easy, rapid, and vast, the influence of 
isolated causes is less; and that general causes 
are more to be considered. By that, also, indivi- 
duals are less important, and their actions more 
unperceived. 

One can but conclude, then, that it only de- 
pends upon the will or the conduct of some men, 
" to exercise a decided and lively influence "* upon 
their nation and times. If they are powerful, and 
suited to the times, a noble task invites their per- 
formance. Knowledge of the times present, skill 
in its spirit and tendency, has always constituted, 
and will constitute more than ever the genius of 
politics. Instead of making use of power, as we 
have seen, to put in commotion a whole generation, 

* See the article from Madame de Stael — Note at the end. 
a 



X\ ill PRE] 

■\erstrain its activity and intoxicate its imagina- 
tion, and give the desire of acquiring more than it 
can keep ; it should unravel calm and reasonable 
desires, moderate views, protect the salutary prin- 
ciples of the age, and give them force and efficacy; 
in a word y rule and uphold; — that is all that is 
possible ; then associations shall be formed; power 
shall be established and remain ; opinions shall 
become sincere and constant. 

In effect human nature cannot, at any time, be 
disinherited of the faculties which have been given 
to it for justice, truth, religion, humanity; it should 
only cultivate these, and not excite the passions 
which are opposed to them. It is for this men try 
their utmost, who ascribe exclusively the exercise 
of social virtues to certain forms, to a certain 
language, to certain reminiscences of such and 
such association of individuals. Thus making the 
most respectable names an offensive means, — a 
vehicle of insult, — an instrument employed for 
i ml interests. 

Impartiality, with which an author is reproached, 
fa not then so culpable. "What," it has been said, 
" can one be impartial between good and evil, be- 



PREFACE. XIX 

tween the just and the unjust ?" But which are the 
parties who have insolently and absurdly pretended 
to possess and appropriate exclusively the good and 
the just, and who will not that we examine even on 
which side are the right and the wrong ? Which are 
the authorities who hope to overcome the spirit 
of revolt, and announce their approach, by exacting 
obedience, without pointing out the means of ob- 
taining justice ? Are they not precisely those who 
produced the great seditions of the eighteenth 
century ? Is it not that which remains a problem ? 
The philosophers of that century, far from meriting 
either all the blame or the praise that has been 
\ bestowed upon them, only obeyed a common move- 
ment, without foreseeing, without even desiring any 
positive result. It is not useless to show that the 
edifice, the object of their regrets is fallen a little 
nearer to its level ; that it has been sapped and 
shaken by various opinions and various influences ; 
by those, even, which seemed the most contradic- 
tory ; and that there is nothing of life nor solidity 
to draw from this dispersed wreck. It is not by 
a culpable indifference nor an apathetical resig- 
nation, that it must be said, " that which is, is;" 
a2 



11 PREFACE. 

it is from the deepest conviction that it is bettei 
to make etlorN to ameliorate a situation by re- 
etnd good order, than vainly attempt to ha- 
zard all, by overturning every principle at itt 
foundation. 



AN 



ANALYSIS OF THE CHAPTERS. 



CHAPTER I.— page 1. 

Important changes in human affairs at close of eighteenth and 
beginning of nineteenth centuries — Causes that mostly over- 
throw empires — Until its last years the eighteenth century (in 
France) not particularly fertile in events — Progress of intel- 
lect — French opinions charged with causing revolution — Inci- 
dents tending to increase knowledge — Causes and effects — 
Fluctuations that conduct nations to their decrepitude — Party 
spirits reviewing past events perpetuate cabals — Appearances 
to an impartial observer — Symptoms of a universal malady met 
with in French authors of the era — Allusions to St. Bartholo- 
mew's day, and the massacres of September — Disturbances 
during sixteenth century — Men of letters at that period devoted 
to their studies — Literature not then in the ways of the world — 
Ennobled the leisure of a few till domination of Cardinal .Riche- 
lieu — Minority of Louis XIV. — Revolts during ministry of 
Cardinal Mazarin not fatal to royalty — Result of factions of 



XXII AN ANAL\s|s 

La Fronde — Aid from tin- people implored by all parties in 
MIOD Btepi taken by Louis XIV. on Ins majority, to re- 
oider among bit subjects — Effects of Cardinal Richelieu's 
violent government destroyed — Writers obeying authority, but 
not seeking to please it, maintained the greater part of their inde- 
pendence — Boldness and freedom of the first race of celebrated 
writers illustrated by Balzac, Corneille, Mlzeray, St. R6al, La- 
mothe Levayer — Style of heroes of La Fronde met with in 
Charleval, St. 1'viemont, Hamilton, Cardinal Retz, Pascal and 
Arnaud — Moliere, Racine and Britannicus show traces in their 
first works — Splendor of Louis XIV. 's reign — clouded by his 
misfortunes and his faults — persecuted protestants — effects of 
his immoral example spread throughout all ranks — Conversation 
of women brought on a frivolity, since then increased — Light- 
ness of piinciples and religious doubts — Philippe of Orleans — 
Mild and tolerant virtue of F6nedon — disgraced and almost 
persecuted — His pupil an animated censurer of the monarch's 
conduct — ill received by him — Eloquence of Massillon and 
Bossuet contrasted — Judicious Fleury — His enlightened love 
of antiquity — Rollin, interesting historian — D'Aguesseau fine 
model of a magistrate — After these writers, literature felt a 
marked influence from society. 



CHAPTER II. — page 21. 

Letters not immediately affected by morals — Campistron and 

Other! imitated Racine — Comedy more vigour — Reynard, Dan - 

, tnd Le Sage, depicted folly and features of society — 

it of Moliere — Daniel, historian, compared with M6zeray — 

It — Spirit shown by reformers — exiles by revocation of 

edict of Nantes — Scepticism of Bayle — Nothing particularly 



OF THE CHAPTERS. XXill 

original at this period except in tragedies of Crebillon — useless 
attempts made to place him on a level with Voltaire — No lyric 
poet after Malherbe — A lyric poet necessary to complete list of 
celebrated writers in the eighteenth century — Disadvantages in 
the language — Imitation of the ancients prejudicial to French 
lyrical composition — Imitation of Greece and Rome began in 
the sixteenth century — Nature gave place to Horace and Pindar 

— Real circumstances modified impression — a mixed character 
in lyrical composition resulted — Greeks true to their own im- 
pulses — servile imitation of them pedantic and injurious — 
Achilles — Agamemnon — Pagan Gods not suited in celebrating 
modern events — Best compositions recount personal impressions 

— Distinguished odes of Rousseau — His talent — Removed from 
severe school of Louis XIV. — Chaulieu, licentious poet — So- 
ciety of the Temple — The Tournelles — Ninon — Grand-prior of 
Vendome — Chaulieu, to please two princes, jested at all re- 
straints — Fontenelle united the two epochs together — blended 
gravity of one with tolerance of the other — Lamotte resembled 
him — embraced the cause Perault had sustained against Ra- 
cine and Boileau — Literary doctrines — matters of doubt — 
Authority less influence — Religion a less curb — Knowledge 
extended — Some writers preserved their dignity — Others borne 
away by the mode — Literature no decided direction — Things 
in a state of crisis and change. 



CHAPTER III.— page 34. 

Voltaire — representative of ceniury — his wonderful powers 

- wrote to please — early success — errors and contradictions 

- somewhat of a courtier — wrote on serious subjects with irre- 



\ 



WIV AN WU.YMS. 

verence — his \anity, pride, ami patronage — exiles, and con- 
demnation of his works — his Mgtr — admiration of England 

— Advantages of -overninrnt cannot he transplanted — The 

■it's opinion openly professed — Voltaire's friendship with 

and rich men — might have rendered his position 

honourable — such powers of mind could have arrested progress 

of threatening opinions — sometimes appreciated their danger — 

lie's merit contrasted like corpse of Patrocles, by two oppo- 

,'irties — his works discussed — Zaire, Ml rope, &c. Sec. — 

a slave to passion and poetry — sometimes a declamator — Epic 

poetry requires the free imagination of the primitive ages — such 

produced Homer and Tasso — Circumstances favourable to 

iEneid — Virgil and the Augustan court — Iliad and Odyssey — 

Voltaire's fugitive poetry interprets his feelings from youth to old 

age — their charm — As far from Ariosto as he was from Homer — 

Character of Charles XII. suited to Voltaire's talent — Causes 

why history of Louis XIV. not so interesting — Difficulties of a 

historian — Ancient historians, less fettered — Xenophon — Tacitus 

— Dramatic form of biographic memoirs, &c. — Improvement of 
English historians — Period of Louis XIV. fatal to France — 
Voltaire unlike a philosopher — gave a just idea of himself in a 
romance — Babouc at Persepolis. 



CHAPTER IV. — page 54. 

Montesquieu — His raillery more bitter than Voltaire's — early 
productions show libertinism of opinions — redeeming character of 
later works — Fable of " Troglodites" — position in society modi- 
fied his opinions and conduct — philosophical view of magisterial 
duties — comparison with liossuct — enlightened passion for 
equity — not lost in vain theories — applicable spirit of his 



OF THE CHAPTERS. XXV 

writings — thoughts upon despotism — double direction of his 
talent shown in " The Dialogues of Sylla and Lysimachus " — 
recall to mind Corneille and Plato — peaceable times tinctured 
his works with an heroic benevolence — Machiavel — Minds 
in trouble resort to works most consonant with their experience — 
Montesquieu compared with Domat — State of literature when 
Voltaire and Montesquieu occupied supreme rank — Despreaux 
quoted — Character of mediocre minds — Transition between the 
epoch of Louis XIV. and preceding one reviewed — Mutual 
action of morals and letters upon each other — Mathematical 
and natural sciences draw attention — Newton — Leibnitz — Fo- 
reign literature translated by Voltaire and others — Voyages — 
Questions of politics and public economy — Contemporary wri- 
ters placed Voltaire below Corneille, Racine, Despreaux and 
Rousseau — Merits of Louis Racine — Le Franc de Pompignan — 
Voltaire without a rival in tragedy — Various imitators of Ra- 
cine and Corneille — Second-rate writers in comedy compared 
with Moiiere, Dancourt and Le Sage — Piron, Destouches, La- 
chaussee, and Gresset, gained reputation in the new school of 
comedy — Marivaux and Moiiere compared — Abbe Prevost 
made some figure in the same branch of literature — Second- 
rate talent began to spread the new opinions — Europe dazzled 
by them — their concurrence with morals, institutions, and go- 
vernment, in accelerating the French revolution — pacific ministry 
of Cardinal Fleury arrested progress for a time — Abbe de Ber- 
nis — Vauvenargues a disciple in the school of Pascal and Fene- 
lon — Contempt for man generally follows the study of the 
moralist — Pascal and Bossuet — healing nature of their doc- 
trines — The taste of Vauvenargues as pure as his moral — Ren- 
dered justice to Racine. 



j 



KX1 I \\ AN MAMS 



CHAPTER V. — page 77. 

Ancient and modern authors contrasted — Civilization, I 
led literary class — The public in time became judges — 
Writers an irritable race, through pride in their performances — 

Dge of Racine — M. de Crequi — Sense of inferiority mor- 
tifying, not to writers only — all classes aimed at equality — 
Pride one of the exciting causes of revolution — Sanguine hopes 
of the literati — Mind and rank placed by Frederic of Prussia on 
the same level — Othersovereigns also patronized learning and aca- 
demies that promoted it — The state of religion, morals, and poli- 
tics, in France — King, nobles, ministers, generals, government ; 
showed neither power nor distinction — Universal homage paid 
to intellect — Seven years' war more introductory to revolution 
than philosophy of encyclopaedists — Writers eager to effect good 
by knowledge — mistaken in their own motives — some excep- 
tions, but the multitude sought literary enjoyments with avidity 
— Nothing encouraged authors to bear a spirit of moderation and 
wisdom — Ministry opposed to Encyclopaedia — obstacles to its 
publication changed its destiny — became a party affair — first 
intended as a monument of science at the epoch — a review of 
the past should be advantageous to the future — second enter- 
prise more conformed to its true aim — critical notice of its con- 
tributors — introduction to it much in repute — D'Alembert a 
mathematical genius of first order — Method by analysis — 
D'Alembert not skilled in metaphysics — Two modes of consi- 
dering them — moral and physical action — difficulty of a pre- 

knowledge — Science of thought — Science of sensation — 
Mallebranche, Leibnitz, occupied in the sub- 
limer question — subject branded as a scholastic leverie by mo- 
dem philosophers — with them the science lowered and nearly 



OF THE CHAPTERS. XXV11 

confounded with physiology — Germany maintained the higher 
theme, and Locke occupied in the same questions — Leibnitz ex- 
hibited a kind of pity for the superficial reasoning of Locke — 
Locke's opinions adopted by encyclopaedists — unfolded by Con- 
dillac with clearness, who lowered the science instead of elevating 
his readers — New theory influenced every branch of knowledge — 
insulated France from ancient philosophy and foreign schools — 
Exact sciences answer in some species of knowledge — their 
spirit and destiny not so agreeable to nature as persuasion — Re- 
ligion, morals, politics, eloquence, poetry, fine arts, exist as 
being the intimate thought of the man — Disposition of soul as 
various as personal appearance — Nature in all — differently 
modified — Natural religion an interior revelation — System by 
analysis destructive — Religion abjured; infidelity; atheism — 
corrupting to lower classes — Obscenity disguised by philosophy. 



CHAPTER VI.— page 96. 

Politics shaken — Theories on social compact — Success of 
Political economy — alteration of its scheme — Arts of the 
imagination newly considered — Grammarians (errors of) — Du- 
marsis, Condillac and Duclos — Algebra — Flexible language 
desirable — Allusion to IMinerva — Style discussed — Opinions 
of Lamothe and Fontenelle — Charles Bonnet — Republic of 
Geneva — Metaphysics of Bonnet and Condillac, middle of 
eighteenth century — Authors of Encyclopaedia — D'Alembert — 
Diderot — Helvetius (gross doctrines of ) — M.Cabanis — Hel- 
vetius — Notions, of love of self, and self-love — The stoics 
— Epicurus — Philosophers disinterested — Advantage of re- 
ligion over human moral. 



\.\V1II WU.Ysls 

CHAPTER VII. — page 113. 

Philosopher! of antiquity — void in their belief supplied by 
an imperfect religion — their authority — disciples — sublime 
ination — Paganism gave way under Christianity — New 
direction of philosophy, after revival of letters — Separation of 
divine from human science — Kiudition became the foundation 
of culture — Studious men apart from the crowd — Montaigne 

— Descartes — French writers different — engaged in worldly 
pleasures — enthusiastic — inclined to scepticism — unsettled 
opinions — Hobbes and Spinosa — Voltaire trafficking for praise 

— New philosophy — Universal spirit in the nation evidenced 
by its writings — More necessary to speak of writers than their 
works — No united body of doctrine — contradict themselves — 
injurious to the crowd — Duclos — Abb6 de Mably fond of anti- 
quity — Saint Louis — Louis XV. — Rome — Greece, (go- 
vernment and morals of,) become as classical in France as their 
poetry in sixteenth century — Epaminondas — Cato — Dugesclin 

— Bayard — Trojan war — Crusades — Virgil — Tasso ■ — French 
politics — Fen£lon — Montesquieu — Daniel — Boulainvilliers 

— Double school of politics at commencement of revolution — 
Rousseau ; formation of his sentiments ; talents ; philosophy ; 
eloquence ; celebrity ; pride ; faults — Duties owing to society — 
Rousseau's eloquence contrasted with Bossuet. 

CHAPTER VIII. — page 134. 

Romance (character of) in Louis XIV.'s time — Rousseau's 

composition — New Ih'Ioise — Kichardson — Womanly graces 

nile — education (Rousseau's system of) — dogmatic style 

— public and private education — Playing comedy with children 

— Rousseau's moral founded upon personal interest — his poli- 



OF THE CHAPTERS. XXIX 

tical works — averse from social order — Montesquieu quoted 
— Social contract — Doctrines favourable to tyranny, and per- 
nicious to liberty — Arguments on policy and government — 
English government — House of Commons — Royal authority in 
France victorious over those destined to protect public liberty 
led to its ruin — Polemics — Confessions of Rousseau — BufTon 
associated with Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau — Ap- 
pearances of nature to the untaught — Talent of BufTon ana- 
lagous to that of Grecians — contrasted with Des Cartes — 
Accusation of Pascal — Natural sciences improve after BufTon — 
Bailly — naturalist — Second-rate talent obtains reputation. 



CHAPTER IX. — page 154. 

Decline of drama — causes why — finished with Gresset — 
Affected authors before him — Diderot — Colle — Lemierre — 
Dubelloy — Pomp of words — Colardeau — Saint Lambert, 
Malfilatre, and Gilbert — Prose writers more distinguished — 
Thomas — Funeral orations — Panegyric — Marcus Aurelius — 
Procession and pageant — its effects — Marmontel — Belisaire 

— Telemachus — Crebillon the younger — Rhetoricians treated 
poetry and eloquence as arts — Montesquieu and Fenelon pointed 
out that new direction — Abbe Dubois and Marmontel also — 
M. de La Harp, light and skilful poet — English historians trans- 
lated — no emulators in France — Animated and picturesque 
recitals form the charm of history — Oral tradition — Dryness of 
most French historical works — Abstract reasonings thought all- 
sufficient — Charlatanism of knowledge — Abridgements of his- 
tory brief, but not interesting — no aid to memory — Skeleton 
history of Henault — Abbe Raynal most renowned in this school 

— Revolutionary torch of Raynal — Academy of Inscriptions — 



\\\ \\ ANALYSIS 

character of its savans — System of translation adopted in seven- 
teenth century changed lnancirnt republics, orators before writ- 
ers- n — Modern oratory — Pulpit oratory 
— Funeral oration by Bossuet — Duke de Conde — Religious 
eloquence not encouraged — Preachers dissimulated to please 
auditors — became literary men — Eloquence of the bar — 
Patlll, Cochin, Lenormand, D'Aguesseau — Various things dis- 
d — Changes effected — Lawyers and magistrates same 
success as men of lettei-s — New spirit to lawyers contributed by 
government — Opposition impatiently supported — State of feel- 
ing in all ranks — Church intolerant — Debates — Suppression 
of Order of Jesuits — M. de Montclar — M. de Castillon — M. 
de Chalotais — M. Servan — Review of attempts to stop march 
of opinions — efforts useless — Spirit of nation no longer in 
writings — shewn by acts. 



CHAPTER X.— page 179. 

Degraded life of Louis XV. drew public animadversions — 
Magistrates punished for opposing kingly power — Beaumar- 
chais — Review of social and political order — Vicious circle — 
Death of Louis XV. — Revival of hope — Accession of another 
king — Louis XVI . — His zeal for good of his people — confided 
in philosophers — their aid without fruit — Confused notions agi- 
tated all minds — To be a writer was to occupy rank in the state — 
Popular literature and cheap publications — Remark of a tra- 
veller — Knowledge accelerated — easily acquired — not solid 
if nourished by illusions — Remarkable epoch in science — 
mble of things a little improved — Wish for change fer- 
menting — Discordance irreconcileable — Literature, brief re- 
vival of — Descriptive poetry of St. Pierre — translator of 



OF THE CHAPTERS. XXXI 

Virgil — Paul and Virginie — Dorat — Collin d'Harleville — 
Fabre — Lafontaine — other fabulists — Abbe Barthelemy — Ana- 
charsis — Barthelemy compared with Fenelon — Eloquence of 
M. Xeckar — Direct causes of change — Rome, England, Ame- 
rica — Other causes of movement — Roman republic — Re- 
formation — Simultaneous movement towards French Revolution 
— Repose gave way to vices and crimes — The ardour for de- 
molition — The result of an enterprise undertaken from a vague 
sentiment without certain aim — First artizans in Revolution 
inspired by pure motives — property at stake not swayed by per- 
sonal interest — Second Constituent Assembly from another 
class — fermented by various doctrines imperfectly understood — 
talent of some in defence — After them nation a prey to pas- 
sions and personal interest — Literature scarcely heard — So- 
phism and declamation at command of all — Europe interfered — 
Author's reflections — Summary — Conclusion. 



A TABLEAU 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 



CHAPTER I. 



The end of the eighteenth and the beginning of 
the nineteenth centuries have been signalized by 
events so important, that all human affairs have 
been changed and renewed. Religion, government, 
the distribution of kingdoms, have suddenly under- 
gone, (not simple modifications,) but complete and 
entire revolutions. The ideas of men upon politics, 
upon morals, upon every thing that can exercise 
their faculties, have taken another direction. His- 
tory could not, perhaps, show a similar example of 
so vast a change, so complete, and, at the same 
time, so rapid, in any part of the world. 

It is a subject w r ell worthy to excite curiosity, to 
find out the causes of that terrible convulsion with 
which our nation was first disturbed, and since has 
propagated. 

B 



I i \r.i r \r OF 

The movements that overthrow empires may 

mostly he attributed to the direct and positive 

influences of the dissensions of the people, to the 
conquests of a prince, to the talents of a general, 

to an insupportable weight of tyranny, or the viola- 
tion of a compact. Hut in Prance, the eighteenth 
century had not been fruitful of events. Among 
those who had possessed authority, none had shown 
one of those great characters which change the fat* 
of kingdoms. Until its last years, the century had 
run its course peaceful enough, without eruptions 
without extraordinary movements : it was by the 
progress of opinions, and by the productions of in- 
tellect, that it had been remarkable. Writers them- 
selves were proud of that development of the human 
mind, which had made the principal feature of the 
era in which they lived. So it is against the French 
opinions of the eighteenth century, and, above all, 
against its writings, that accusations have been 
brought. Among the accusers, it appears to us, that 
some have allowed themselves to be carried away 
by a spirit of exaggeration and animosity into a 
rror. Separating the eighteenth cen- 
from all other centuries, they consider that as 

1 era, in which a mischievous talent had in- 
spired writers with opinions that they had spread 
among the people. They should have said, " Let 

ithout the works of* these writers; all will 

i be in the same state as in the seventeenth 

century;" — as if a century could transmit to its 



FRENCH LITERATURE. d 

successor an inheritance of mind such as it had 
received of its ancestor. But it is not so. Opinions 
must necessarily progress by the union of men in a 
country, by their habits of communication begetting 
a certain march of opinion, ideas, argument, which 
nothing can suspend. It is that which we call the 
" march of civilization. " It brings, sometimes, 
epochs that are peaceable and virtuous, sometimes 
criminal and agitated ; sometimes glory, some- 
times opprobrium; and, according as we are thrown 
by Providence into one or the other of these times, 
we reap the good or the evil attached to the period 
in which we live : on these depend our style, our 
conceits, our habitual impressions. Nothing can 
subtract from society this progressive alteration. 
In this history of human opinions, circumstances 
are, in a manner, so chained together, that it is 
impossible to say which had not necessarily re- 
sulted from its precedent. Thus, when we begin 
to blame the state in which the mind of man has 
been found at a certain moment, the blame ascends 
from one to another, from effect to cause, without end. 

It seems, then, that the human mind may be, 
in some sort, subject to the empire of necessity; 
that it may be irrevocably destined to run a deter- 
mined course, and to accomplish a prescribed revo- 
lution, like that of the planets. 

The course of this planet brings, one time or 
another, critical epochs for nations. 

For some time, the march of human intellect, at 
b 2 



\ i \r.i r u 01 

first slowly and insensibly, then accelerated and 
rapid, effects no change in the happiness of a 
people, Literature shines, sciences make rapid 
utrid , light is disseminated ; then 

b time in which the belief generally adopted, 
in which the fo genius Had themselves at 

variance with the existing institutions; then terrible 

lutions burst forth ; then governments give 
way; religions totter; manners are lost; a long 
disorder, a continued agitation, cruelly harass the 
people. At length, the tempest calms, and peace 
is re-established. The want of rest renders the 
spirits docile : they lose the vanity and obstinacy 
they had attached to their opinions ; ungovernable 
circumstances break the strength of their character ; 
new habits form themselves after the new order of 
things, and the children sometimes find again a 
tranquil period, after witnessing the misfortunes 
which had destroyed their parents. Then com- 
mences the sad retrospection to form ideas to be- 
cpme again opposed to institutions, and producing 
through them new catastrophes. It is thus that 
civilization, by those alternations more or less 
united with, more or less fatal to, repose or con- 
flict, conduct- nations to their decrepitude. 

We have had evidence of one of these fatal cri- 

has burst forth under our sight, in our 

i luntry, which has overwhelmed us with long 

and cruel d When tranquillity lias been 

re-established, each, in his chagrin, has sought 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 5 

into the cause of past ills. Party spirit, re- 
maining habits of cabal, have mixed with the 
examination ; the sharpness of personal hostility, 
the ordinary fruits of controversy, has taken place 
of reason ; they have admitted that they have 
found a consolation even in hatred. Some, proud 
of that in which others were deceived, forget- 
ting with celerity (or impudence) their own faults, 
have willingly included in one vast proscrip- 
tion all that belonged to the eighteenth century ; 
the others, engaged by old habits, and finding 
themselves comprised in that accusation, are bound 
to defend a time which was theirs. In this way, 
the question, great and universal as it might be, has 
become an interminable combat of personal argu- 
ments. The eighteenth century has only been a 
pretext to quarrel. The first, in attacking, have 
thought to deal out blows to their adversaries ; and 
these, on their part, are thought obliged to parry 
off those blows directed against them individually. 

Perhaps those who have not taken any part in 
past events, who are come too late to take any side, 
and who have not been engaged in the discords yet 
ill extinguished, would have more impartiality. This 
sentiment will carry us back again to more general 
causes. The era would appear to them as a vast 
drama, the denouement of which was as inevitable 
as the commencement and the progress were neces- 
sary. They would follow the course of opinions 
during the era ; they would inquire into the mo- 



A TABLEAU OF 

menl of separation; they would note the various 

>s which had been taken, and the time that had 

been arraigned. Literature would be, in their view, 

neither an enterprise bj Common conspiracy of the 
literati to overturn established order, nor a noble 
concert for the benefit of the human species ; they 
would consider it as the expression of society ; so 
would define it to be praiseworthy genius. Applying 
this idea to the eighteenth century, they would 
develope it in all its details ; they would see, 
that letters, instead of regulating, as some have 
Baid, the thoughts and actions of a people, were 
very often the result, and immediately conse- 
quent upon them ; and that they could not 
change the form or constitution of a government, 
the habits of society — in a word, the relations sub- 
ting among men, without literature shortly after 
undergoing a correspondent alteration. They 
would see how public opinions formed themselves, 
how writers adopted and developed them, and how 
the direction in which writers travelled was marked 
out to them by the age. It was a current which 
v navigated ; their movements hastened its ra- 
pidity, but the age gave it the first impulse. Such 
be idea they would form of the influence of men 
on letters. 

Tims instead of considering the writings of the 

eighteenth century as works worthy either of blame 

or praise, they would view them as having only the 

utoms of the universal malady. They would 



TRENCH LITERATURE. 7 

avoid being accusers or apologists, and endeavour 
to be historians. Fearing nevertheless to fall into a 
guilty indifference, they would feel it imperative 
neither to pardon vice nor infidelity. They would 
seek out the character and intention of a writer, 
and would not judge him entirely by the opinions 
he had professed, since each may find himself 
the unlucky or innocent follower of circumstances. 
They would not impute wrong to him who had 
sought right in the sincerity of his heart ; and if 
they were reproaching the irreligious philosopher with 
having ascribed the Saint Bartholomew to religion, 
would not fall into the same error by charging phi- 
losophy with the massacres of September. 

In adopting this procedure, we are under the 
necessity to ascend higher than the eighteenth 
century, and to glance at the times which had 
preceded, and that are united not only by the 
course of years, but also by that of the human mind. 

From the sixteenth century, in which continued 
wars had given birth to new and grand events, a 
certain fermentation had succeeded the movements 
of the people. Knowledge had spread ; the mate- 
rials of antiquity were brought forward by the scholar, 
to serve as an example for genius ; religions had 
fought ; their contests had ended in making their ob- 
ervances clearer and more regular, but had thrown 
into some minds doubts upon dogmas. Notwith- 
standing, literature and science were yet very little 
in the constitution of empires. The passions and 



8 A TABLEAU OF 

interests of princes and nobles, the government of 
reigns — Buch were the principles of change and 
revolution. Men of letters lived in the silence and 
solitude of their closet; they seldom quitted it; 
their minds inhabited not the real world, neither in 
the past centuries, nor in those times elevated by 
metaphysical philosophy. Nothing in their works 
was common or applicable. The events of the 
times concerned them not ; they took no cogni- 
zance of them. The continual reunion of men 
of leisure, bringing their ideas in common, which 
is an important means of improvement, was not 
in the modes of those times; — the opinions of 
writers could have neither part nor influence in 
the state. 

Persons, whose position called them to exercise 
political activity, had not, in general, during 
their busy career, leisure to acquire knowledge, 
nor to give themselves up to reflection. If, in 
the church or the magistracy, a few men occu- 
pied themselves equally in learning and profes- 
sional duties, their conduct reflected not that double 
engagement. Literature having then little to do 
with the ways of the world, not being an object of 
habitual communication, ennobled their leisure, but 
influenced them no more than the rest of the nation. 

Such was the character of letters until the domi- 
nation of Cardinal Richelieu; they gradually ex- 
tended their domain ; were introduced by little and 
little into the ordinary language ; everyday more 



TRENCH LITERATURE. 9 

minds were engaged by them, yet were strangers to 
the affairs of the people, to their manners, and even 
to their opinions. 

Immediately after the death of Cardinal Riche- 
lieu, the nobles desired to throw off constraint. A 
change sometimes inspires more courage. Besides, 
the successor of the minister did not possess his 
ungovernable character; and, as it was not against 
royalty that they were accustomed to murmur, 
the security of the throne was by no means at- 
tacked. They thought only to overthrow the mi- 
nister. When the revolt had arrived at the foot 
of the throne, they bowed with respect and retired. 
Such was the character of that sedition, which 
commenced actively, and returned upon itself, be- 
cause the seditious, being confined to a certain 
limit, could not go beyond it. There was that of La 
Fronde in particular, which, working no overthrow, 
and attacking all, without upsetting, left each man 
and each class in their places. It was that which con- 
tributed speedily and completely to terminate that 
species of revolution. No one had fallen, no va- 
nity had suffered. There was not, as we have 
since seen, an insurmountable barrier between the 
past and the future. 

Nevertheless, such a state of disorder and in- 
discipline must necessarily have left traces in 
the mind, and must have taught them no longer 
to respect that which had formerly been the 
object of their veneration. They had lampooned 



10 



A TABLEAU OF 



a queen and a cardinal ; a coadjutor of Paris 

had compromised his ecclesiastical dignity a thou- 
sand ways ; princes had ridiculed parliament, and 
grandson of Henry IV. bad been given up to 

the public derision. It was not with impunity 
that such examples were exhibited to the people ; 
although neither enlightened nor reflective, they 
had blended all things together, and had struck 
the blow. Nor was it the first time that the people 
had been called in as auxiliary in the troubles of 
France ; that is, in so far as it required strength, 
not opinion. More than once they had attacked the 
grandees of the state and its ministers ; often even 
they had shewn hatred and rage against them, but 
yet they had not ceased to fear and to respect them. 
AVhen the factions of La Fronde arose, the princes, 
the grandees, the nobles, the magistrates, had all 
lost their strength and their dignity under the iron 
yoke of Cardinal Richelieu ; and when, one after the 
other, they solicited the aid of the people, it was 
as equals that they implored them. They learnt 
by that to reverence royal authority only. From 
that moment they had no more respect for things, 
institutions, nor persons ; every thing was stripped 
of power and consideration, excepting the throne 
only, which seemed the more elevated when not 
i ned by its appendages. During a century 
and a half following, by degrees, they no longer re- 
spected even the throne itself. 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 11 

To return — The influences of La Fronde did not 
quickly reach the last ranks of society ; — they 
were not formed in a manner to give a ready cur- 
rency to their notions. They manifested themselves 
at first only among the rich and idle classes of the 
capital. 

But here commenced the reign of a king capable 
of dissipating the appearance of disorder. The grace 
and dignity, the importance and politeness of a 
spirit eminently despotic, as if by instinct, without 
violence, without perversity ; not thinking of re- 
sistance, yet requiring in general only such things 
as were just and reasonable ; — such was the character 
of a sovereign who was to exercise so great an influ- 
ence over the nation, and whose reign was to be sig- 
nalized by a change almost total in the French charac- 
ter. It was not, however, without some trouble that 
he began to re-fashion the court and France agree- 
ably to his wishes. The great lords maintained for 
some time a tone of independence and levity ; a de- 
generated modification of the frank and daring 
character of their ancestors. Favours and banish- 
ment crushed this spirit of opposition, which no 
more applied itself but to petty intrigues. The 
parliament was constrained to regard itself no longer 
as the defender of the rights of the nation ; the 
court was removed out of Paris, become odious 
by its revolts ; courtiers were no longer driven 
from their love and obedience by the society of 



13 A TABLEAU OF 

men who, removed from the person of their mo- 
narch, were not awed by the saint? illusion. At 
length the work of Cardinal Richelieu was consumed. 

The system of government he had established 
bj violence, found itself thenceforward conformed 
to the new mode of things. 

Now let as see whether we do not discover that 
letters also had changed character during these 
fluctuations of government and politics. 

It seems that in the works published under the 
reign of Cardinal Richelieu, during the first part of 
the seventeenth century, we may recognise features 
of strength and gravity. Writers were not rebels 
to authority, could not at all pretend to independ- 
ence ; but, when called upon to obey power, with- 
out seeking, to please it, the mind preserved the 
greater part of its freedom. The lives of the li- 
terati were recluse and studious. Their imagina- 
tions were enlightened by the spectacle of the great 
events to which they were witnesses. Sometimes 
they sought the aid of their pen, and the fruits of 
their lucubrations blended themselves with the in- 
terests of the world. 

From these circumstances result the boldness 
of the sentiments, the independence of the ideas, 
the audacious judgment we remark in all things 
by Corneille, M&zeray, Balzac, St. Real, by La 
mothe-Levayer. Shortly after, and more parti- 
cularly during the troubles of La Fronde, we 
find a crowd of writers of another stamp, who 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 13 

were also quickly to disappear. The levity, mirth, 
familiarity, often the profundity of Charleval, St. 
Evremont, of Hamilton, his disciple (although he 
wrote later), depended also upon the circum- 
stances of that epoch. The Cardinal Retz knew 
how to preserve in his memoirs the style of the 
heroes of La Fronde. Pascal, who then began 
to shine, felt also those influences. Later, when 
the great Arnaud lived in exile, his friend could 
not have impressed the provincials with the strength 
and independence of his character, without shew- 
ing equally the joke and the severe satire. Mo- 
liere, who had lived in the society of many of those 
men, united, in some sort, vigour of talent, depth 
of observation, and jest in his style. Racine, 
younger, but who had frequented the last remains 
of that school, shews the same traces in his first 
works; and, without doubt, Britannicus, also dissatis- 
fied with the court and the public already changed, 
is a result of this first position. He took another 
route, and happily his genius seems to have lost no- 
thing. 

The love of repose and order, the gratitude 
they owed for these, the new spectacle of a court 
which had subdued and even seduced the nation, 
turning their minds another way, made every one 
think it a glory to contribute to the glory of the 
monarch. All was destined to please him. The 
talent of this epoch had inward strength enough 
for this requisition, to put off only a small part of 



14 A TABLEAU 01 

its warmth and its originality. The tree whose ve- 
il ion is Vigorous, -rows not less proud and lofty 
from having undergone some constraint. 

But we must observe, all that had made the 

glory of Louis XIV. — ministers, generals, writers, 
all had received birth and education at an epoch 
when his government had not yet taken its own 
form. Their genius, so to speak, was tempered 
in a time when the spirit had more vigour and 
freedom. However this be, that first generation 
of men, once exhausted, it could never be re- 
newed. The influence of Louis XIV. caused none 
but such as those to spring up around him. His 
eclat was clouded when he had lost that noble cor- 
tege. Obedience continued to be the same ; the 
sovereign was always surrounded by every ap- 
pearance of respect ; — but love and enthusiasm 
were no more. He had forgotten that the eclat, 
and the sentiments with which he had inspired 
his courtiers at the commencement of his reign, 
were spread throughout France. At the conclu- 
sion, his court observing him closely, was the 
Hist to depart from that species of adoration. 
How, in truth, could young princes and young 
lords preserve any inward respect for a king who 
required sanctity of manner, whilst in the face 
of hi- Icingdomj and in contempt of laws the most 
sacred, lie had raised and acknowledged as his chil- 
dren, the fruits of a two-fold adultery — who thought 
erify his love and respect for religion, by driving 



TRENCH LITERATURE. 15 

away the protestants, and persecuting the last re- 
mains of Port Royal ; and who blushed not, at last, 
to exhibit publicly his slavery to a woman, whose 
mind and character were fitted to govern a convent, 
but not to rule an empire ? However, these contra- 
dictions were, so to speak, concealed under an im- 
posing representation ; and whilst the evils, which 
were the fruits of these faults, were supported with a 
noble resignation, it was yet thought that the new 
generation, which had not been present at the climax 
of glory and prosperity of the aged monarch, and 
who thus were not subjugated by powerful reminis- 
cences, would not be more haughty under that 
power which had been acknowledged by their 
fathers. Under the cognizance of the majestic as- 
pect of the king, none dared to infringe the rules he 
had prescribed. But in his own palace, his chil- 
dren, their favourites, their contemporaries, gave 
themselves up to those irregularities which they easily 
concealed from the enfeebled sight of the august old 
man ; then religion and morals by degrees became 
objects of ridicule. They accustomed themselves to 
consider as vain those laws which they saw every day 
comply with the humour of the sovereign, who, 
however, imagined himself the observer, and required 
that others should strictly conform themselves to 
them. Whilst the idle life of the court, and the 
conversation of women destroyed the grave cha- 
racter that the French had in old times, and had 
brought on a frivolity, which has since then increased, 



1 (> i \r.i.i \r OF 

and although tlic exhibition of disorder could but in- 
spire that Btrong hatred which the honest mind 
oughl to fed, yet it spread a certain indifference 

for principles; B spirit of scepticism upon those opi- 
nions which mankind had till then revered ; a habit 
njoying everything ; and an unblushing impu- 
dence, which, after having existed a long time, 
during the old age of Louis XIV. and imbittered 
his last moments, finished, by placing Philippe of 
( )i leans upon the throne. 

Nevertheless, there yet were in the court those 
elevated beings who saw the errors of the king, and 
knew how to judge him without losing the senti- 
ments of respect and obedience. Fenelon lived in 
the midst of that society, and there spread his vir- 
tuous doctrines ; there they could not take occasion 
to decry morals and religion, because those who pro- 
fessed them knew only to conform themselves to 
them. In observing the weaknesses and foibles of the 
world around, and seeing how passions and preju- 
dices triumphed over the best intentions, Fenelon 
taught to profess a mild and tolerant virtue; 
he perceived, likewise, that those who obeyed morals 
and religion from fear and blind submission, knew 
not their higher use, and sought to give them a ca- 
pability which had its source in the love and clear- 
of persuasion. He thought, since kings were 
subject to error, and their errors caused the misfor- 
tunes of the people, that law - should serve to restrain 
royal power, lie was disgraced and almost perse- 



EREXCH LITERATURE. 17 

cuted. His pupil, whom he loved to think would 
make the happiness of France, was, during his life- 
time, ill received by his grandfather, who found 
him an animated censurer of his conduct, which was 
an object of ridicule among the youth of the court, 
who blamed the faults of the sovereign, only to 
practise a greater disorder. 

Fenelon is not, however, the last, who served the 
cause of religion and morals by the union of virtue 
and mildness, happily blended for the good and 
instruction of his species. Immediately after him, 
we find a prelate eloquent and respectable, who 
gave to the precepts of reason and liberty, the au- 
thority of the word of God, and who restricted them 
to the observances of religion and the laws. Such 
was the character of the sweet eloquence of Mas- 
sillon. Bossuet had maintained in the pulpit all 
those doctrines which establish the absolute power 
of kings and the ministers of religion. He held in 
contempt the opinions and will of mankind, and re- 
quired an entire submission to power. 

Massillon, who lived, not like Bossuet, under a 
government noble and commanding, upon which it 
was the glory of the nation to repose, was not, 
therefore, inspired by the same means. In exhorting 
the citizens to obedience, he recalled unceasingly 
to the mind of the young prince, that he must merit 
it by respecting the rights of the nation. He placed 
truth before a king who profited badly by his ex- 
alted lessons, and whose conduct was debased by 
c 



18 A TABL1 \i OF 

following timent which began at that time 

openly to show a contempt for all authority. 

His eloquence participated in the character of his 
opinions. He was not, like Bossuet, powerful l>\ 

his altitude and energy ; by a sort of sharpness and 
terror which subjugated and discouraged the mind. 
Massillon seized not the attention by authority and 
vivid force. The progress of his thoughts was more 

dual — he developed them, and by degrees car- 
ried the hearer with him ; raising himself into 
a holy fervour, he filled all hearts, and by an- 
other course, produced the noblest effects of elo- 
quence. We must observe also, that lie used lan- 

ige differently. Bossuet, profoundly versed in the 
sacred writings, full of an erudition which contro- 
versy had rendered necessary, transported into his 
discourses the language of Scripture with the simpli- 
city and boldness of oriental phrase; and language 
yielded to the force of his thoughts. Massillon con- 
formed himself more to the timid genius which our 
language had taken. He had already written much, 
was habituated to those forms of style consecrated 
by ^reat success, and could dispose of language as 

lyas he could assume an individual and original 
character. 

The old age of Louis XIV., and the first years 
of the eighteenth century, leave us to remark some 

a, who, by their character and the tenor of their 
writings, belong rather to those times in which 
they commenced their career, than to that which 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 19 

finished it. Among them we must name the Abbe 
Fleurv, who had merited the esteem and patronage 
of Fenelon. All parties, by common consent, sur- 
named him the " Judicious Fleurv." 

The " Eclesiastical History" is an immense work, 
in which we find more than erudition. It is written 
with care, and with criticism and fidelity : the num- 
ber of metaphysical questions, which make a part of 
the subject, are discussed with clearness and profun- 
dity. The picture of the events of the world, that 
refer to religion, is sketched simply and with com- 
manding touches. In the opinions which accom- 
pany that history, the author displays an impar- 
tiality which is equally removed from indifference. 
In his work upon the choice and method of study, 
he has shown a sense of truth and justice, and a vivid 
and enlightened love of antiquity, without pedantry 
or affectation. 

Rollin, who lived far from the world, and wholly 
devoted to the duties of his occupation, wrote with 
simplicity. He tried to inspire the young with a 
taste for virtue, and at the same time with a love 
of letters. He wrote history without dryness or 
misconstruction — not, as it were, to demonstrate a 
system, as we have since seen. 

More illustrious than these, D'Aguesseau, a citizen, 
full of virtue and firmness, in the midst of universal 
corruption, never yielded to the seductions of vice 
nor to the abuse of power ; he occupied his leisure 
in the study of letters and the sciences, and gave 
c 2 






A TABLEAU OF 

an exalted model of the conduct that a magistrate of 
the French monarchy should hold in following the 
footsteps left of their career by so many virtuous 
predecessors. We find, in his style, full of gravity 
and mildness, all the character of his life. He culti- 
1 the sciences accurately, as well as foreign lite- 
rature ; and was one of the first w T ho followed a 
species of study which a short time afterwards united 
itself with some new opinions ; but his piety and his 
ataeliment to the severe duties of a magistrate, held 
him aloof from that spirit which began to pervade 
literature as well as to deprave morals. 

Thus having spoken of those who remained, so to 
speak, strangers to that which surrounded them, we 
are about to enter, without further essay, upon the 
literature which received so powerfully the influence 
of vitiated morals and assumed all the character of 
the times. 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 21 



CHAPTER II. 



The court of Louis XIV., was now changed ; it 
had adopted a new spirit and principles though let- 
ters yet continued in the direction heretofore marked 
out by those illustrious authors who had shone one 
after the other. Campistron and the imitators of 
Racine, followed the steps of their master with more 
or less success, without giving their productions any 
individual character. Instead of investigating sen- 
timents and ascertaining their own talent, they con- 
fined themselves to copy the forms of style of their 
model. 

Comedy had kept more vigour and gaiety. The 
character, folly, and features, of divers states of 
society, had yet preserved that degree of p r/ r*ui- 
nence which has since been effaced. Reynard and 
Dancourt exhibited with great felicity of jest and 
spirit, sometimes even with depth, the debauched 
manners of their times. Le Sage, their rival in co- 
medy, applied the same species of talent to ro- 
mance, which thus took, under his hands, quite a 
new character. It belonged to an author of the 



A TABLE u 

school of Moliere to produce G - which is 

t. a COmedy, only in another form. It is the 

picture of the human heart under the aspect ofvice 
follj ; but Le Sage, like iMolinv. knew how to 

demonstrate man without dissecting him. Nothing 

in his works shows analysis ; he is one of the first 
who knew how to paint instead of describing. Later, 
he was thought more profound because lie made a 
parade of the work of observation and his imagina- 
tion had lost the power to reproduce living nature. 

The comedies of that period are curious to con- 
sult as historical monuments and as authentic 
witnesses of the morals and manners of those 
times. They show that it was not far to travel from 
the end of the reign of Louis XIV., to the regency 
of the Duke of Orleans. It was almost an insensi- 
ble transition for the genius of the nation; but the 
difference between the two governments was great 
and fatal. 

Some historians carry us back to that moment. 

Daniel falsified to the advantage of royal authority, 

the aunals of the nation, and destroyed all the 

charm which contemporaneous narrators had dif- 

d over the noble souvenirs of ancient France. 

ara before, the spiritual and profound Me- 

v had much better preserved the genius of the 

national character. Vertdt, although less exact, 

stripped of force and simplicity, succeeded better 

than Daniel, and knew, at least, how to interest. 

In the meantime, out of France were many writers 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 23 

animated by a peculiar spirit. These were the re- 
formers, exiles by the revocation of the edict of 
Nantes, who revenged themselves continually for 
the persecutions they had unjustly suffered, by ca- 
lumniating the king and the catholic clergy. Their 
writings, circulating in France, found spirits dis- 
posed to discontent, sharpened by the misfortunes 
of war, and increased by contempt for the authority 
of the laws. 

Among those refugees shone an enlightened 
individual whose productions will live for a long 
period, while the other obscure libels have almost 
as quickly been forgotten. It was Bayle — the 
boldest and most frigid sceptic of all the philo- 
sophers. Ordinarily, writers have made their doubts 
serve to destroy that which has existed, in order to 
substitute their own opinion ; it has been a weapon 
they have employed for conquest : with Bayle the 
doubt was a result, not a means — it was a perfect 
equilibrium between all opinions — nothing could 
incline the balance. Party spirit, prejudices, the 
influence of eloquence, the seductions of the imagi- 
nation, nothing touched Bayle — nothing could de- 
termine him. All opinions appeared to Rim probable ; 
when he found one ill-defended, he seized upon it, 
and lent it that aid by which it might be supported. 
Strange ! that he seemed to revel in a sort of incer- 
titude ; his soul neither oppressed nor torn by that 
ignorance upon questions which concern most men, 
he resorted to them and rejoiced in the inability to 



OF 

settle them: that which irasaserioua punishment 

to manv great minds — to many elevated souls, was 

it of pastime to him. 

They ascribe i dangerous influence to the philo- 
sophy of Bayle ; in the tirst place, the equilibrium 
of opinions might, it is true, seduce some minds 
into the belief of its superiority, but the doubt of 
Bayle is a learned doubt. ; he banters much more 
those who reject lightly and without examination, 
than those who believe with submission. In old 
times, knowledge caused men to doubt ; since, ig- 
norance and frivolity have opened a larger way. 
It is not in works like those of Bayle, to mislead 
the vulgar ; it has been since, perhaps, that they 
have become more fatal ; the immense erudition 
that composes them has been a vast arsenal to which 
incredulity has easily resorted to borrow arms, and 
has also found the sad example of a continual 
raillery, that brands with disgrace all the opinions 
and all the elevated movements of the soul, consi- 
dering as folly everything which did not agree with 
its own cold reasonings. The wit of Bayle is cer- 
tainly almost always dull and vulgar, it amuses 
sometimes, precisely because it is imperturbable, 
and blends itself singularly with the pedantry of a 
critic ; but it has been met with since among men 
who have given to the jests of Bayle a lightness 
and a grace arranged for the uses of frivolity, and 
to procure them universal currency. 

While, during some years, literature had followed 



TRENCH LITERATURE. 25 

the traces of the period of Louis XIV., without pro- 
ducing anything marked or original, some men of 
talent shewed that they belonged not to the medio- 
crity of servile imitation ; and that to acquire a 
durable reputation, they must follow the guidance 
of, and, yet more essential, yield themselves to, their 
own impulses. 

A new tragedy appeared upon the stage, and it 
was marked, above all, by a new and peculiar cha- 
racter. Crebillon, a stranger to the models of an- 
tiquity, having meditated very little upon history, 
destitute of great or profound thoughts, a writer 
without correctness or harmony, could sometimes 
give to the passions a sombre expression, that struck 
and astonished the mind, without exciting the feel- 
ings. He was entirely distant from the art in which 
Racine triumphed ; — that skill which seizes entirely 
upon the soul, and arrives, by successive shadow- 
ings, always full of truth, to the most passionate 
movements, so conducting the spectator, by a con- 
tinuous process, to a participation in the feelings 
and circumstances of the actors. The imitators of 
Racine, thinking to follow the same course, dissi- 
pated passion by a vain loquacity, and mean- 
ing to prepare for tragical impressions, only 
weakened them. Crebillon, who lived in solitude, 
and had passed his youth far from Paris, rose above 
them, simply by yielding more to his own talent, 
which he knew would give a colour to his works ; 
but the genius, that a union of favourable circum- 



A TABU At 

I from falling into an insipid imita 
tion, far from being able to equal the great 

- of the French stage. When the tragedies 
!r&billon appeared, they were not otherwise con- 
red, though some of them obtained great 3 
- ; yet it was not until a long time after, that an 
effort was mack' to put this author in the first rank, 
to oppose a writer who was so classed. This facti- 
tious renown has since given way ; and in spit* 
the constant hatred against Voltaire, which two or 
three generations of critics have carefully bequeathed, 
Cabillon could not sustain a rivalship with him, by 
whose side he was placed. 

Not far from the same epoch, we find a writer 
whose reputation acquired a better title ; it has 
also remained the greatest. Then nting, in 

the literary glory of the age of Louis XIV., a lyric 
poet, to complete the reunion of celebrated men in 
distinct species. Malherbe had not, like 
Corneille, the honour to find a successor. The 
lyrical career presents difficulties great enough to 
forbid the hope of obtaining a complete success. 

Without speaking of the obstacles the language 
presents, in reference to syntax and harmony, it 
must be observed, that poetry among us obtains 
quite another direction to that of the ancients. It 
made an essential part of their morals, and almost 
of their language ; it expressed habitual sentiments ; 
it entered into their daily customs ; it represented 
facts, such as they believed ; causes, such as they 



TRENCH LITERATURE. 27 

had under their own eye ; it adored the gods which 
they celebrated in public worship ; — in a word, it 
was full of reality, and was not a language of con- 
vention. 

For us, if poetry had not received importations, 
both ancient and foreign, if it had continued the 
child of our old fables, of our romances of chivalry, 
of our ancient mysteries, of our Gothic superstitions, 
it had vegetated, perhaps, a long time in its infancy, 
but it would have kept a true and national character ; 
an intimate connection with our morals, our religion, 
our annals, that would have given it an immediate 
and more complete effect. It has not been thus. 

From the fifteenth century, our writers, instead of 
improving our Gothic literature, had comported 
themselves as descendants of Greece and Rome. 
They adopted the gods that were not ours, the man- 
ners to which we were strangers, and repudiated all 
the souvenirs of France, to transport themselves to 
those of antiquity. They began to copy or disguise 
antique models, and to repel the impressions and the 
inspirations of real life. The songs, formerly the 
delight of the palace and the old chateaus ; the 
verses, that our kings and our heroes, men without 
knowledge or study, traced, at the point of their 
sword, to express, without difficulty, their loves 
and their chagrins, became the exclusive patrimony 
of the Doctes, who knew Horace and Pindar well 
enough, but forgat nature. 

This imitation of the ancients had at first a pedantic 



28 A TABLEAU or 

character, entirely out of truth : bj degrees it formed 

itself into a sort of melange. The circumstances of 
real life modified the impressions received from anci- 
ent literature, and from that double action resulted 
the middle direction in which it has since continued. 
But, in defiance of long habit, in spite of the education 
which has almost identified us with this system, poetry 
has always shown something borrowed, and estranged 
from our feelings. It is only by a sort of tacit con- 
sent that we transport ourselves into its domain. It 
is this which leaves us far behind the ancients, and 
above all, the Greeks, who were always in earnest ; 
wiio painted that which they felt, described that 
which they saw ; who thought themselves under no 
obligation to exaggerate their impressions, or to 
swell their language. 

It is particularly in lyrical poetry that the fault is 
most felt ; — there, the poet is entirely given up to 
himself, he must tell us of his feelings, his sentiments, 
and the pictures painted upon his imagination. We 
have been well pleased to hear Achilles and Aga- 
memnon speak a language not ours ; but the man of 
our day, who carries us to Greece or Rome to describe 
his feelings, will with difficulty obtain our sympathy ; 
his enthusiasm will run great risk of becoming facti- 
tious, without our exhibiting any emotion. For this 
reason, the best odes of Rousseau, and in general the 
pieces most distinguished of our lyrical poetry, are 
those sacred subjects which have their source in our 
religion ; and, moreover, the odes designed to recount 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 29 

the personal impressions of grief, love, enjoyment, — 
all those allegorical odes, where the Pagan gods 
arrive to celebrate events, or to blend themselves 
with the detail of life, may be considered ingenious 
declamations, but are not true poetry — that which 
goes to the soul. 

Rousseau brought into almost all his odes a 
great felicity and a sort of pompous harmony, 
which he alone knew how to give our language ; 
but he is sometimes bombastic, and his style does 
not always search the heart — a defect, perhaps, it is 
impossible to avoid in French lyrical poetry. Rous- 
seau, although he paraphrased the Psalms, although 
some men, who called themselves religious, con- 
sidered him as one of their patrons, bears the cha- 
racter of a writer far removed from the severe school 
of the era of Louis XIV. In truth, what are we 
to think of a man who could at the same time 
exercise his talent in sacred poetry and in obscene 
epigrams ? Is not such a contradiction exhibited 
to convince us that we no longer had to fear, as 
formerly, the censure of those serious minds whose 
opinions were once respected ? 

Chaulieu, who chaunted pleasure, but who did 
not, like Rousseau, prostitute poetry to the vile 
debauch, contributed yet more to show the in- 
fluence morals had already exercised on letters. 
The society of the Temple, of which he sang the 
charms with so much grace and lewdness, was 
heir to the society of the Tournelles. The gaiety 



rABLEAl 01 

the friends of Ninon had passed away in taking 
a character more licentious with the courtez&ns of 
the Grand-prior of Vend6me. It was well known 

what habit8 the prince and his brother carried with 
them to the camp, what opinions they held, with- 
out any respect to their rank ; it was concluded 
how much more they must defy all decency when 

they found themselves in that voluptuous retreat, 
surrounded by their familiars. Few things would 
he respected in such society; and the poet owed 
it to the prince, who admitted him to his friendship, 
to speak with complacency of its pleasures, and 
with levity of all that should curb them. 

It is here we name a man who seems to unite the 
two epochs together : Fontenelle, born early enough 
for the best years of the famous reign that sparkled 
under his eyes, and who lived to see the best 
titles to glory in the eighteenth century. Ne- 
phew of Corneille, he first tried tragedy ; but, being 
depressed by misfortune, his fall drew upon him 
the epigrams of Racine. Zeal for the glory of his 
uncle, and personal resentment, engaged Fontenelle 
in a party opposed to those men who then reigned 
D over letters. He professed principles of 
taste different from theirs; but the mildness of his 
character and love of ease, which he always pre- 
I to the enjoyments of vanity, prevented him 
from embracing any opinion with warmth. In the 
dispute about the ancients and moderns, he inclined 
to the Bide of the adversaries of antiquity, but ar- 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 31 

gued without passion, as he always did. He had 
the rare good sense to attach neither importance 
nor certainty enough to his notions to desire others 
to follow him. When he had doubts upon religion, 
he knew how to confine himself within that just 
measure of reserve and criticism which distinguishes 
the " History of the Oracles." The pursuits of his 
youth had imbued him with the systems of the 
Cartesian philosophy ; he preserved his esteem for 
them, but without defending them, or attacking 
the new school of philosophers with whom he lived 
in peace. The lukewarmness of his disposition 
shewed itself in his talent, remarkable for its inge- 
nious finesse and impartiality. He had neither the 
rapture nor the imagination of a poet, nor the in- 
vention of a savant. He carried a sort of dryness 
and affectation into letters, and sometimes gave to 
the sciences a complexion very frivolous. Such as 
we have depicted him, we see that he had too much 
reflection and judgment entirely to be hurried away 
by the current of his time, and too much prudence 
to oppose it. He united always the reserve and 
gravity he had acquired during the first years of his 
lite, to the tolerance professed by his latest contem- 
poraries. 

Among the writers who illustrate the be^innins: 
of his century, we must not forget to place La- 
Mothe, whose opinions, conduct, and character have, 
in this respect, a resemblance to Fontenelle. A 
poet cold and false in the highest species of lyrical 



a T.\r,i i \r of 

poetry — BOmetfanee agreeable in the Anacreontic 
ode — a fabulist without naivete, but, sometimes 

qious, he was happier in the dramatic can 

Ilg a suitable subject, lie disposed of 

it with considerable judgment, introduced situations 
really touching, that hid inability where he ought 
to have developed with profundity and sentiment. La- 
Motbe, in liis day, was more remarkable as a critic 
than as an author ; and we must notice the degree 
of merit he shewed in the discussion respecting the 
ancients and moderns. The cause Perrault had 
sustained, without wit or knowledge, against Racine 
and Boileau, was embraced by La-Mothe. In the 
dispute, he appears more subtile them erudite. He 
withdrew his admiration from those beauties that 
were not to his taste, and would dethrone poetry 
from that height to which he could not attain ; but 
he brought into the discussion truth and decency, 
for he knew that, to render his opinion probable, he 
must sustain it with some degree of honour ; — thus 
literary doctrines began also to stagger and become 
matters of doubt. 

Such altogether is the picture presented to us of the 
end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eigh- 
teenth centuries. Authority had lost its respectability 
and a part of its power ; religion had ceased to be a 
universal curb ; doubt had begun to destroy persua- 
sion ; knowledge and the habit of reflection, were 
more generally spread; judgment upon all things 
was consequently more diffused, but strength and du- 



A TABLEAU OF 33 

rability were lost. Every one had learnt to attach 
more importance to himself and his own opinions, 
and to have less regard for those which had been 
received. 

The writers that we have named illustrate the 
epoch ; some preserved in their talent and conduct 
somewhat of the character of the preceding years ; 
others were entirely borne away by the influence 
of the mode. But literature had not taken a very 
decided direction ; — it was not yet found among 
men strong enough to impress upon it a determined 
movement. Besides, when the mind and morals 
of a nation are in a state of crisis and change, 
writers cannot tender the whole of their opinions, 
principles and aim. 

The men who shone at the commencement of the 
century had first lived in other times. To know 
the fruits of an epoch, it is necessary to see the 
genuine children — those to whom it had given 
birth and education. 



M'l I'.AU OF 






CHAPTER III. 



In the mean time, to carry ofY the palm from the 
schools, and the precocious success of the young, 
appeared a man who was destined to gather to him- 
self the greater part of the glory of the age, to bear 
all its impress, and to become, so to speak, its repre- 
sentative, to the point where it was little more than 
needful for him to have imposed his name. Without 
doubt, nature had endowed Voltaire with the mostasto- 
nishing faculties ; witlioutdoubt, such powers of mind 
were not entirely the result either of education or 
circumstances : nevertheless, it will not be impos- 
sible to show that the employment of his talent was 
constantly conformed to the opinion of the times, 
and that the wish to prosper and to please (the 
primum mobile of almost all writers) had guided 
Voltaire <wi v moment of liis life. But as no per- 
son was more Busceptible than lie of the force of 
ions, his genius presents, as it seems to 
singular phenomenon of a man often de- 
prived of that faculty of the mind called reflection, 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 35 

and, at the same time, endowed, in the highest de- 
gree, with the power to feel and to express, with a 
marvellous vivacity. This is doubtless the cause of 
his success and of his errors. That manner of con- 
sidering every thing in one point of view, and of 
yielding to the actual sensations which an object 
produces, without thinking of those it might have 
yielded under other circumstances, have multiplied 
the contradictions of Voltaire, and often misled him 
from truth and reason to destroy the structure of 
his works as a perfect whole. But an entire aban- 
donment to his impressions, a continual impetuosity 
of sentiment, an irritability so delicate and so lively, 
have produced the pathos, the irresistible passion, 
the force of wit or eloquence, and the continual 
grace that flows with a felicity without bounds. 
And when reason and justice came to be invested 
with this brilliant outside, they then acquired the 
most seducing charm : it seemed as if they were 
rising, without effort, to all the brightness of a di- 
rect and natural light ; and their expounder left far 
behind him all those who demonstrated laboriously 
by judgment, comparison, and experience. 

If the first success of Voltaire had been less 
splendid — if he had not suddenly been crowned 
with a glory which caused him to be sought by men 
most distinguished for rank and riches, he had 
doubtless maintained more modesty and reserve. 
The character of his first works shows that he bore 
to the world a genius not very independent. We 
d2 



.'*f> I I \r,i i \i Of 

perceive clearly, in some, that levity and frivolity 
applied to every thing, which his contemporaries 

had carried to so high a pitch; yet we must remark 
something submissive and courtier-like towards 
every Bpecies of authority. But when the young 
author, intoxicated with the applauses of the the- 
atre, and yet more by the flattering' familiarity of 
some grandees, saw that lie had restrained himself 
within useless limits, and the more he sported with 
every thing, the more he should please those with 
whom he flattered himself to be in friendship, then 
he lost, by degrees, the caution he had first ob- 
served, and emboldened himself to speak of all 
subjects with irreverence. Such is the degree of 
progression, that, more than all, is discovered in his 
fugitive poetry — those chefs-d'eeuvres of badinage 
and agreeableness ; that present unceasingly the 
seducing and dangerous contrast of serious things 
treated with a tone of jest, and, at the same time, 
with a show of justice and reason. Notwithstand- 
the success of Voltaire was always accumulat- 
ing, his importance constantly displayed itself; and 
every thing encouraged him to scatter in his pro- 
ductions that spirit which succeeded so well with 
the public who applauded. 

Divers times, government wished to check the 
impetus that every day gathered fresh strength. It 
found by his writings that all had begun atendency 
to the same point ; or, to speak more exactly, to 
travel in the same direction. He was imprisoned, 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 37 

exiled, menaced ; but these persecutions had not 
any effect. That which violated public morals — 
attacked every thing that the whole world re- 
spected, might well be punished with universal 
disapprobation ; but that which expressed opinions 
generally spread, or, at least, those towards which 
each began to incline, would find on all sides 
supports which upheld it. Those who had the 
power often wished to punish him, and as often 
some one stepped forward to protect him. So 
Voltaire, only exasperated by his exile, and the 
condemnation of his works, became gradually not 
merely a power, but a power rendered hostile, at 
the same time that his influence was increased. His 
travels, and the reception he met with from stran- 
gers, gave him a dislike to his country : he was 
the first who professed, in his writings, an admira- 
tion for England. We will agree that the spec- 
tacle of a nation, whose government was at the 
same time free yet stable, where reigned together 
the love of country and the spirit of liberty, with- 
out injury to morals or public peace, would with 
difficulty be seen without regret by a Frenchman, 
who discerned, in his own country, a people of 
anti-courtiers, without public spirit; and a govern- 
ment, without note, exacting all the rights of des- 
potism, yet too imbecile to suppress licence. 

Voltaire, and others who followed him, praised 
England only to pity or to blame France. They 
thought ill, and had only seen the English nation 



A TABLE u 01 

superficially, and were ignorant of the causes 
whence resulted its happiness. They often ad- 
mired that which least merited to be envied. 
The boast was a subject to draw satire on the 
French. 

It is needful for sad experience to shew us that 
such advantages are not acquired by imitation, 
and that the prosperity of a people can only ori- 
ginate in its own soil. It is not a merchandise 
which can be imported from abroad. For the rest, 
admiration of England, before it appeared in the 
works of Voltaire, had already been openly pro- 
fessed by the Regent and his friends. From the 
heads of the nation, it was more inconvenient than 
from the pen of an author. 

The more Voltaire advanced in his career, the 
more we find him surrounded by homage and 
praise. Kings were his friends, and almost his cour- 
tiers. Hatred and envy revolted at his honors, and 
excited in him feelings of anger. The continual 
opposition gave yet more animation to his character, 
but mostly subtracted from him moderation, mo- 
desty, and good taste. Such was his life ; such was 
the process that brought him to a lengthened old 
age, which he might have rendered so honorable when, 
environed by an immense share of glory, he reigned 
the autocrat of letters; which themselves had reached 
their greatest elevation on all subjects that could 
interest the curiosity, or excite the attention of 
mankind. 



TRENCH LITERATURE. 39 

It is to be regretted that Voltaire had not felt 
how much he had the power to ennoble and illus- 
trate such a position, in profiting by the advantages 
it offered, and in following that course which it 
seemed to prescribe to him. It is afflicting that, 
allowing himself to be hurried away by the torrent 
of a degraded age, he was plunged into that daring 
cynisme which might have found excuse in the 
freedom of youth, but forms a degrading con- 
trast with grey hairs ; the symbol of wisdom and 
purity. What spectacle can be more revolting than 
an old man insulting the Deity. 

Instead of this picture, the imagination loves to 
trace another ; and to represent Voltaire such as he 
might have been. It figures to itself a venerable man, 
whose mind had grasped many things, and almost 
always with success ; enjoying tranquilly his renown ; 
rectifying the imprudent mistakes of his youth ; at- 
tracting the rising generation to the refinements of 
good taste, and to the sentiments of order and de- 
cency, of which he had seen the last remains ; master 
of a large fortune acquired without cupidity, and con- 
secrated to acts of beneficence ; surrounded by the 
homage of Europe, whose choicest inhabitants should 
visit his retreat and seek his friendship : such is the 
position Voltaire ought to have enjoyed. Indeed so 
much is it indicated by his situation, that one often 
imagines it had really conformed to it. 

Many times, in the midst of a shameful intoxica- 
tion > in which vanity and the desire of influence 



40 \ rxr.i.rw or 

med plunged, be had returns of reason. He 
would fain have resisted in some things the impulse 
of which be bad partaken, and rendered more active. 
In bis last works, through the continual variety'of 
opinions and systems — of assertions ever absolute 
and unceasingly contradictory, we sometimes meet 
with deductions profoundly rational, and a just ap- 
preciation of the miserable spirit which reigned 
around him. It is then we regret that he had had 
the perpetual mobility and want of reflection, and 
above all, that immense love of praise, and of the 
world. He alone, armed with all the powers of his 
mind, could, in a degree, have retarded the course 
of threatening opinions which accumulated on all 
sides, and which, combated with feebleness or insin- 
cerity, acquired yet more force by a powerless re- 
sistance. 

After having examined the conduct and general 
character of Voltaire, we come to speak more par- 
ticularly of his works. Their merit has been a 
hundred times discussed, and yet remains a problem. 
Almost always received with enthusiasm by the 
public, they met at the same time with decided 
detractors ; and party spirit has always presided 
in -lead of judgment. Half a century has passed 
away, and the reputation of Voltaire is yet, like the 
dead body of Patrocles, disputed between two par- 
ties animated one against the other. Such a con- 
test is sufficient to perpetuate his fame. Some men 
have become eminent by defending him ; others 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 41 

have only been celebrated by being at all times 
ready to attack him. In so prolonged a conflict, 
the renown of Voltaire, undoubtedly, has not pre- 
served all the eclat with which it once sparkled. 

It is no more the national enthusiasm, the admi- 
ration equal to that which heroes and benefactors of 
mankind have inspired ; it is no more the triumph 
that was decreed him to his last hour as he de- 
scended into the tomb. A colder and more cir- 
cumspect judgment has weakened those lively ma- 
nifestations. 

There is somewhat of absurdity and folly in the 
efforts of those who labour to preserve the glory of 
Voltaire entire. A sufficient space of time has 
passed away, for us to consider the opinion of pos- 
terity as pronounced. 

Accustomed to place dramatic compositions in 
the first rank of literature, it is as a tragic poet 
that Voltaire first meets our observation. In the 
first productions of his youth, as well as in his con- 
duct, he shows a conformity to received opinions 
and examples precedently given. In " CEdipe," 
we find a young author penetrated with the beau- 
ties of Racine and Corneille, and submitting his 
genius to follow them. In " Mariamne," the ex- 
treme care to imitate the poetry of Racine is yet 
more marked. That which astonishes us, is to see 
imitations full of life and truth, exhibiting at the 
same time an exact similitude. That work was not 
rewarded with success. After " CEdipe, " in which 



A TAT.I 1 \T oi 

he was supported by the example Of Sophocles, 
Voltaire could not obtain a complete triumph; no- 
thing encouraged him to follow the vestiges of his 

predecessors. The impatience of his genius, whose 
nature was to wander unrestrained, forced him 
to rely entirely upon himself, and to yield to the 
free course of those thoughts with which he was 
filled. 

Then appeared " Zaire," with its defects so much 
censured, and its beauties which would make one 
forget them. It was in that work that Voltaire 
established the character of a tragic writer. It was 
not the perfection of the verse of Racine, and their 
melodious sweetness — it was not the scrupulous 
care in the contexture of the plot, the infinite gra- 
dations of sentiment ; neither was it the lofty ima- 
gination and simplicity of Corneille. There is, per- 
haps, in Voltaire, that which belongs to no other : 
it is a certain hurried warmth of passion ; an entire 
yielding ; a power of sentiment that enchains and 
silences ; a grace which charms while it subjugates. 
Poetry, such as his, can only be produced by men 
of the most ardent imagination ; if any thing can 
give the idea of an author a prey to all the fascina- 
tion of passion and poetry, it is in a work like that 
of " Zaire." It is impossible, even to criticize it 
iously, without being struck with the force, faci- 
lity and grace, that distinguishes the tragic muse of 
Voltaire. 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 43 

Other chefs-d'oeuvres succeeded to " Zaire, " all 
with the same species of beauties and defects. 

We must also remark, that Voltaire, having be- 
come somewhat more than a poet, wished to give 
his tragedies a more elevated aim than to please and 
to excite — he pretended to instruct his era by the 
influence of his dramatic works, and to give them 
the same construction as his other writings. No- 
thing hurts the imagination so much as giving it a 
design, or submitting it to a system : it contracts a 
coldness and affectation. This was the source of a 
defect that critics have remarked, not without rea- 
son; and from the same fault arose the emphatic and 
declamatory tone which often cooled the most lively 
situations, destroyed the truth of his characters, and 
defaced local colours. In these general remarks, 
we should have been glad not to have included 
Corneille, as culpable in that respect as Voltaire. 

Of the rest he has left a monument, more complete 
and less attackable, of his tragic talent: " Merope" 
may be presented to the critic without fear : and if 
the details have less charm than those of " Zaire," 
the ensemble is less deserving of censure. 

It is as an epic poet that Voltaire has most in- 
jured his reputation. In vain did he flatter him- 
self to give an epic poem to France. It was not in 
the times in which he lived, it was not in his cha- 
racter to produce such a work. Epic poetry re- 
quires the animated and free imagination of the pri- 



44 A TABLEAU OF 

mitiw ages; when knowledge has not yet enfeebled 
tin 1 strength of belief, the elevation of sentiment, 
the variety and vigour of character; — the epic 

can only be sun- to a simple people, and, so to 
speak, children, sensible of the charm of the long 
recital, loving the marvellous, ignorant of explana- 
tions and criticisms. Jt is then that the epic may 
be painted in primitive colours, and clothed with the 
forms of grandeur. Such were the circumstances 
which produced Homer and Tasso. 

By a grave and melancholy character, with true 
and pure sentiments nourishing the remembrance 
of misfortune in solitude, the epic has been ren- 
dered as touching as they made it grand, and se- 
cured admiration through the interest : but if Virgil 
fled the influence of the court of Augustus, Vol- 
taire was, on the contrary, far from avoiding the 
influence of the court of the Regent. He formed an 
epic poem with the same degree of inspiration that 
he would have brought to compose a long epistle 
in verse ; he thought that the epic poem consisted 
in certain conventional forms — in a marvellous as- 
sortment : he filled it with those formalities, and 
thought he had accomplished a masterpiece. He 
did not see that it is not a dream, a recitation, nor 
the divinities, that constitute the epic poem; but 
rather a solemn and elevated imagination, and, 
above all, simple and true, which forms it. The 
" Iliad" resembles the "Odyssey" in nothing but 
the disposal of the parts ; yet they both have in 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 45 

common, the character of the epic. Nevertheless, 
we do not deny that the " Henriade" offers great 
beauties ; the poetry is not epic, but it is sometimes 
elevated and pathetic. 

The beauty of the fugitive poems of Voltaire has 
not been so much contested. One of their principal 
merits, which augments more than any thing their 
interest, is, that they serve to make us acquainted 
with the feelings and thoughts of the poet. We love 
to see poetry borrow a charm from real impressions 
— for the rest, the greater part is a vain arrange- 
ment of words ! Thus we follow the tide of Vol- 
taire's feelings from his infancy to the last days 
of his life ; he always gave verse as his inter- 
preters. 

Sometimes his muse sang the fickle and voluptu- 
ous amours of his youth, the charms of a free and 
epicurean life, the pleasures of friendship, the gra- 
tification of self-love ; afterwards he conversed on 
the sciences, which he animated with his own fire ; 
later he entered into discourse with kings, and lent 
to flattery the mask of familiarity ; later still he 
had more to paint the sweets of liberty and solitude, 
the decline of life, the termination of his loves ; 
and, at last, when he was conscious of old age, he 
expressed that continual uncertainty of opinions — 
that fluctuation of principles — that deplorable 
levity on all subjects of serious import to man, and 
that inquietude of character which old age could 
not calm. But some of the poetry of his last years 



\ TABU m OF 

was often without disgrace to the author; whilst 

those obscure pamphlets, witty sayings in prose, 
the clandestine productions his friends demanded of 
him, and which he sent to them with bo much 
complacency, arc, in general, unworthy of an ho- 
nest mind. 

Among these writings we place a poem, which 
was, for a long time, considered as one of Vol- 
taire's greatest pretensions to fame, and proves that 
he conformed to the times in parodying the heroic 
ages of his country, and in blemishing, by a me- 
lange of gross obscenities, those pictures most grate- 
ful to the voluptuary, and sallies most daring to 
the mind. Now it could be no more than a crow 7 d 
of acceptable details that drew favour to such a 
work. While, as a whole, we observe more of 
poetical imagination than in the " Henriade," yet 
the author remains as far behind Ariosto as Homer. 
The gay, as well as the sublime, requires a sort of 
naivete and sincerity : it has no resemblance to 
scoffing or bantering. 

Voltaire, as an historian, has likewise suffered 
attacks upon his renown. On that side he pre- 
sents feeble parts ; it was not with vivacity of opi- 
nion and the want of enquiry, that he could hope 
to attain the serious character of an historian. 
Nevertheless, his first essay was happy, and me- 
rited the success it obtained. He had the good 
fortune to choose for his hero the most romantic, 
and the most adventurous of sovereigns. Reflec- 



\ 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 47 

tion had little value in the life of Charles of 
Sweden — it even would have destroyed its interest. 
It wanted rapidity of recital and brilliant colours — 
profound knowledge, and a just appreciation of 
mankind were little necessary, when he had to 
treat of a prince who had shewn himself quite be- 
yond them. There were no grand conceptions to 
judge, no secret motives to unravel. Charles XII. 
was entirely an actor : it was only necessary to 
paint, and that was one of the talents of Voltaire. 

To trace the tableau of the reign of Louis XIV. 
was an undertaking altogether of difficulty. In 
spite of all its eclat, the history is far from exhibit- 
ing the same interest with that of the King of 
Sweden. It has less of unity, it is more compli- 
cated, it embraces more characters, more causes, 
more motives. The events are not the immediate 
result of passion or persons. It is less dramatic, 
and speaks less to the imagination. One might 
say, the more a nation is civilized, the more it 
loses the prominent and picturesque forms of an- 
cient ages, which make the charm of the recital. 
The duty of an historian is likewise more diffi- 
cult to fulfil. We demand impartiality, and re- 
proach him with lack of warmth and interest. We 
require particulars of commerce, arts, government ; 
and complain that philosophical considerations 
swell the narrative of facts. We proscribe eru- 
dition, and censure the writer who neglects it. 
Older historians were not always so fettered They 



48 ft TABU \i OF 

wrote with all their prejudices, they preserved 
their individual features, without Beeking for a cold 
impartiality, which shows itself more in forms than 
in reality. They recounted the victories of their 
country, without anxiety to learn the history of 
the vanquished. They neither abdicated their 
opinions nor their feelings. 

Xenophon, in the middle of Athens, did not con- 
ceal his admiration of Lacedemon ; Tacitus yielded 
himself to a virtuous hatred of tyrants ; each gave 
himself up freely to that which was ; safe to be 
either blamed or praised ; it was for the reader to 
judge the strength of the testimony of the histo- 
rian, and of the confidence that should be given to 
him. In history, as well as in general literature, 
they had the talent of painting personal impres- 
sions. While we conceive of modern history in a 
manner not analagous to that of Greece or Rome, 
we must renounce the hope of exciting the same 
interest. Chronicles, memoirs, biographies, can 
alone give us sensations of the like nature, and act 
upon our imaginations ; at least we find in them 
something of the dramatic which strikes and fastens 
upon the mind. 

It was Voltaire who first gave a marked example 
of that new mode of writing history : he wished to 
make, no more a tableau, but a series of researches 
destined to improve the memoir and to occupy the 
m Kii t. After him the English historians, in 
imitating that manner of writing, have surpassed 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 49 

their model in erudition, philosophy, and imparti- 
ality ; for sincerity and impartiality become more 
necessary in that species of history ; and, even ad- 
mitting that it be the best, Voltaire yet merits many 
censures. The little depth in his reflections, the 
incomplete knowledge of character ; a style which 
pleases, without inducing thought, — such are the 
reproaches brought against him : they might have 
added some of a graver kind. Voltaire, in the reign 
of Louis XIV., only saw the eclat and splendour of 
the victories, the literature, the arts : he never 
thought of examining the character of the govern- 
ment and the administration of the monarch; the 
influence that he had had upon the character of the 
nation, and the consequences that had resulted. 
He had not remarked that, perhaps, no epoch in 
the history of France was more important, by the 
change in morals, the social relations, and the an- 
cient spirit of our constitution. 

It is to the brilliant colouring of Voltaire that we 
owe the unreserved admiration for the reign of 
Louis XIV. He has made us forget that a kins: 
has other duties than to acquire renown for his em- 
pire. He has made us forget that France had a 
glory more venerable and solid than that of an age 
of elegance. More than any other, he has desired 
to represent the times that had preceded that epoch, 
as obscured by barbarism. 

For him, for his generation, and for those which 



A TABLEAU OF 

have followed, our nation merited no interest be- 
ilie seventeenth century. 

What importance in his consideration the beauty 
of our ancient manners ; the noble and pater- 
nal character of some of our kings ; the rights 
of the nation recognised and defended, when they 
wire not respected ; the freedom of the discourse, 
and the force of the character ! All these attracted 
his attention less than the refinement of the lan- 
guage and the display of its poetry. Those advan- 
tages, so precious in the mind of a man of letters, 
prevented him from noticing that kingly power had 
overthrown all the ancient order of things, abo- 
lished all its traditions, and thrown a fatal uncer- 
tainty upon the principles of public right. 

It is not thus that Louis XIV. has been judged 
in the years that have followed his death ; we 
have been enlightened by the wrongs, by the disas- 
ters that have accrued. Some have preserved a re- 
sentment profound and even exaggerated. 

Voltaire was one of the first who contributed 
to weaken the prepossessions and party-injustice, 
that had been cherished respecting the monarch. 
The memory of a king greater and more beloved, 
had yet more claims upon him, and the patriotic 
love of the French for Henry IV., was renewed by 
the praises which Voltaire lavished on him. No 
part of the reign of Louis XIV. claims the admi- 
ration or the remembrance of so good a king ; per- 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 51 

haps he was removed from the boast at that 
time. 

The greater part of the censures passed upon the 
history of the era of Louis XIV. apply to the 
essay on the " Moeurs des Nations/' But that work I 
deserves blame of a graver cast; we find in it traces 
of the sectarian spirit adopted by Voltaire in the I 
last years of his life. His hatred to religion is fre- / 
quently expressed in bad faith and bad taste. Not- / 
withstanding, the work is useful and instructive ; / 
the style is agreeable and natural ; the facts are 
well disposed ; the details given in a just propor- 
tion ; the reflections sometimes light, sometimes 
rational ; the sketch of some epochs, the portraits 
of many great men are drawn with a force and re- 
markable vivacity : few modern histories are more 
useful or more pleasant to read. 

It remains for us to speak of the spirit which he 
introduced into philosophy ; that is to say, the opi- 
nions relative to religion, morals, and politics. 
He is accused of a formal project to overthrow the 
three bases of the honour and happiness of man- 
kind. 

But those who expect to find in Voltaire a system 
of philosophy, connected principles, or a centre of 
opinions, would be much embarrassed. Nothing is 
less suited to the grave idea we have of a philoso- 
pher, than the kind of spirit and talent of Voltaire. 

That he had a desire to please the age, to influ- 
ence it, to revenge himself on his enemies, to form 



A TABU u 

Ttv which might be praised and defended, wi 

could believe without, inucli trouble. He lived in 
Awn morals were lost, at least in the supe- 
rior : — envy and hatred employed 
ast him the weapon of religion, when it was not 
much respected by its supporters. He considered 
it only as a species of persecution. His country 
had a government without strength, without note; 
and which took no means to obtain it : he had a 
spirit of independence and opposition. There is the 
real source of his sentiments. We can imagine 
how they were obtained without excusing them. 
He continually uttered them without dreaming of 
the fatal effects they might produce. He was, on 
many occasions, far from showing, in his errors, 
the undeviating obstinacy and immeasurable pride 
of many other writers of the same epoch. 

He has, himself, in one of his romances, given 
us a just idea of his own philosophy. Babouc, com- 
missioned to examine the manners and institutions 
of Persepolis, observed all the rites with wisdom, 
ridiculed every thing with all his powers, attacked 
every thing with a tenacious freedom ; but when 
he thought at last, that from his definitive judg- 
ment might result the ruin of Persepolis, he found, 
cry thing, advantages he had not before dis- 
covered, and refused to destroy the city. Such 
was Voltaire. He desired permission to judge 
ly and to scoff at all things ; but to overthrow, 

I far from his thoughts : he had a feeling right 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 53 

enough, but a disgust too great for the vulgar and 
the populace, to form a similar vow. Unhappily, 
when a nation has possessed a philosopher like 
Babouc, he has not known, like him, to suspend 
and balance his judgment ; it has only been by a 
deplorable experience that he has perceived, too 
late, that it had not been expedient to destroy 
Persepolis ! 



A TABLSA1 01 



CHAPTER IV. 



Montesquieu, the most illustrious of Voltaire's 
contemporaries, and who maintained his equality 
among those who contributed to the splendour of the 
century, notwithstanding the gravity of his cha- 
racter, and the regularity of his life, presents to us 
the same remarkable traces of the times in which he 
lived. 

It is particularly in the " Lettres Persanes," the 
production of his youth, that we see the boldness of 
inquiry, the inclination to paradox, the judgments 
upon morals, laws, institutions, the libertinism of 
opinion, if we may so speak, which at once attest 
the passion, power, and imprudence of the mind. 
Religion fares no better. Under the thin veil of 
jests thrown at the Mussulman religion, and even 
by more direct attacks, Montesquieu consigned to 
ridicule the progress of theological arguments in 
general, as well as belief in every species of tenet. 
We may even say, that the raillery of Montesquieu 
had more bitterness than Voltaire's, and might pro- 
duce more effect — as it directed its attacks against 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 55 

the foundation of things. But when we bring a 
serious reflection to the reading of that work, when 
we do not attach more importance to the free 
opinions it contains, than we apply to the author 
himself, we may, under all the disapprobation, 
sometimes take a lively interest. We remark, 
through much judgment risked, traces of a noble 
and elevated understanding ; the constant love of 
the just and the honest ; and we persuade our- 
selves, that he who could write the fable of the 
" Troglodytes," worthy of the simple and eloquent 
philosophy of antiquity, was far from holding any 
culpable sentiment. After that work, everything 
contributed to modify the character of Montesquieu, 
and to render his opinions more complete and seri- 
ous. He was not simply a writer ; his life was not 
entirely devoted to literary success ; he held a situ- 
ation full of importance ; it was needful that he 
should respect the examples of his forefathers ; it was 
needful that he should merit the esteem of a class of 
men, among whom he was placed, and with whom 
knowledge was made to increase virtue. The presi- 
dent, Montesquieu, had not that independence so 
much sought by men of letters, and which, perhaps, 
hurts their talent as well as their character. He was 
held in the bonds of family and of the corporation, 
which imposed their duties upon him. He did not live 
estranged from his affairs, neither did he inhabit the 
world of theory, in which writers found nothing cer- 
tain to bring them back to truth and reason when 
they had rambled from them. 



56 A TAl'.l BAD 01 

Mooteaquien Bed from Paris, aad ptsaed the 

:,.,. put of his time far from asocietj whose hi- 

nlu , wted him from devoting himaeH to 

stu.lv una meditation, and which taught him to 

ration tor the force Of a mind pro- 
foundly conrinced. He was aloof from the career 
of fluctuating saccess, from the life of self-love, 
whkh attaches so milch importance to the praises 
of critics, and gives to the culture of letters, to 
that noble and pure occupation of the soul, a spirit 
biassed by a profession engaged unceasingly in the 
prosperity of its commerce. 

He entirely consecrated himself to study, as a 
philosopher, the laws which he already knew as a 
magistrate. He desired to ascertain how positive 
taws depended upon the morals of a people, the 
form of government, the physical circumstances of 
a country, the historical events,— in short, all that 
comprises the ensemble of each nation. Such was 
the work of his life. It was thus he erected a mo- 
nument, perhaps the more honourable to his age 
and his country. 

It was not the lofty eloquence of Bossuet, hover- 
ing over empires, throwing an eagle-like regard 
upon their revolutions and their ruins; placing him- 
self as spectator above humanity, to find out the 
ways of Providence, in which he produced nothing 
directly applicable to the good of mankind or 
the policy of societies; and by which he learnt 
to disdain, by a sublime elevation, the greatest 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 51 

events of this world, to think only of the grand 
hereafter. 

But another species of honour is due to him who 
offers practical lessons ; and who discovers the pre- 
cise point at which the principles of things at once 
apply themselves to the positive details of politics, 
and to the exalted and general knowledge of men, 
their virtues, their vices, and their manifold tenden- 
cies. This is the plan of Montesquieu's work. We 
love to see a superior mind, animating, by the gran- 
deur of its views, the contemplation of the textual 
rules that govern us. We experience all the charm 
of the warmth that reigns in the ideal region of phi- 
losophy ; at the same time, an applicable spirit 
constantly displays itself, through the eclat of en- 
larged ideas and speaking pictures. 

No work presents more useful instruction for 
the government and administration of European 
nations, and especially France. 

Montesquieu is not lost in vain theories ; he is 
fraught with the knowledge of history ; he deve- 
lopes the character of the citizens, in his account of 
their constitutions ; he travelled to compare various 
modern governments, and sought out the traces of 
their common origin. 

That he has attributed too much power to sun 
and climate ; that he has not expressly enough 
said that the principles assigned by him to each 
form of constitution should exist, but that he has 
never found them perfect, so that the type of the 






\ I \i;i.i \r or 

three forms cannot be met with without mixture ; 
that lie has neglected restrictions, that we can i 
aily supply by serious reflection ; that he has cm- 
ployed brilliant language, which seems little worthy 
of himself or his subjects ; these are the unimport- 
ant defects. But a passion for justice, an enlightened 
hatred of despotism, which is not spent in vague 
declamations, but unfolds with wisdom every thing 
that can mislead the people ; that demonstrates 
every infamy, every absurdity, sometimes with the 
reason that judges, sometimes with the feeling of 
indignation : these animate " l'Esprit des Lois" 
from one end to the other. 

We ought to add that all these noble sentiments 
are accompanied by a uniform moderation ; and 
that, at the moment we begin to disapprove of the 
measure, nothing Montesquieu says can provoke 
to revolt against the authority. He inculcates 
respect for the laws and justice yet more especially 
than the love of liberty. He knew well that it is 
glory to enjoy what we possess, and that we can 
never be sure of conquest. He knew that a govern- 
ment established, by that even which has subsisted 
a long time, is always in a sort of harmony with 
the manners of the nation ; and that, when it is 
destroyed, we may foresee certain calamities, 
without power to calculate upon their ameliora- 
tion. Even despotism, which he detests, he does 
not recommend to be overthrown ; he views it as 
a degradation of human nature ; he deplores and 



TRENCH LITERATURE. 59 

despises it much more as the result of a general 
debasement of minds, who are no longer conscious 
of their shame or their misfortune. For us to re- 
claim them, we should in vain change the order 
of things. Even sufferings would be entirely lost ; 
they could neither recreate strength nor honour. 
Despotism is not even the punishment of corrupt 
nations — they merit and undergo the chastisement 
without feeling it. 

Nevertheless, in spite of the gravity of his life 
and the elevation of his works, Montesquieu al- 
ways preserved a portion of the character he had 
shewn in his " Lettres Persanes :" in truth we 
should have had to regret its entire suppression. 

Much as his renown reposes upon the solid and 
serious titles, he was always as remarkable for the 
richness of his imagination as for the profundity of 
his thoughts. His works shew us a lively and 
animated genius, which could subdue itself to the 
labour of study and reflection. By the one an 
idea would take the form of a picture ; by the 
other, a statement would result in exposition of 
some facts, Montesquieu had wearied himself to 
collect and present under that aspect. His talent 
had an invincible leaning to brilliant and poetic 
thoughts, while his occupations were devoted to 
the materials of morals, politics and government. 
All the works of Montesquieu exhibit traces of 
this double direction. In writing the " Lettres 
Persanes," he blended an animated picture of 






v i VBLE \r ok 



oriental manners with a romantic interest into a 
work which had in appearance quite another de- 
sign; in the Temple of Guide, in the midst of a 
sketch of voluptuousness, we are surprised to find 
die philosopher delineating, in grand touches, the 
character of the people. 

The talent of Montesquieu was, perhaps, never 
more shewn than when in two writings very little 
spread, " The Dialogues of Sylla and Lysima- 
chus," he happily united the two features of his 
own mind. The poetic imagination has seldom 
produced a nobler work. There are two fine dra- 
matic conceptions animated by an eloquence grave, 
convincing, and sublime. The genius of Corneille 
was honoured by it, and it also brings to our re- 
membrance some dialogues of Plato. 

The epoch in which Montesquieu wrote im- 
parted also a particular colour to his opinions upon 
politics. He lived in times of peace and order ; 
lie was far from revolutions and all those move- 
ments, when the spirit of man takes a new form, 
and reveals itself suddenly in a manner unforeseen. 
He could not know how many impure elements 
hide themselves sometimes under the apparent 
grandeur of historical events ; how many calamities, 
public and private, are screened by the eclat and 
the interest, when history sparkles in the eyes of 
posterity. Many objects presented themselves to 
him under an ideal point of view, had excited his 
imagination, and now appear to us under an en- 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 61 

tirely different aspect. The present has taught 
us to comprehend many things we could not un- 
ravel of the past. History becomes more sorrow- 
ful and mighty for those who can, in reading it, 
compare it with the great events to which they 
have been witnesses. 

What governments, what constitutions we have 
admired and considered as models that we must now 
regard with another eye ! What men have ap- 
peared to us clothed with glory and celebrity, whose 
virtues and merit are at this time destroyed or di- 
minished, now we have seen what circumstances 
may conduct to renown ! What events in remote 
centuries have seemed to us solemn and imposing, 
and are now as useless comedies, of which posterity 
has lost the key ! It is thus that, in admiring 
the arrangement and completion of the work on 
the " Grandeur and Decadence of Rome,' , we 
have the misery of not being able to enter com- 
pletely into the system of virtue and prudence, 
that the imagination of Montesquieu made to pre- 
side, from age to age, over the destiny anc^ the 
glory of the masters of the world ; it is, that in 
adopting it we should fear to fall very short of his 
heroic tableau ; it is, that the spectacle of our age 
makes us sincerely incredulous ! Such is the effect 
of circumstances upon opinions ! Montesquieu 
lived in peaceable times ; and, not seeing the 
vices agitating around him, regarded success as the 
necessary and natural recompense of virtue and ' 



a TABLEAU OF 

honour. Blachiavd, in the midst of the cruel 

combats of Italian politics, saw only the ureal 

ability and the force of character which were their 
direction and aim. 

We, likewise, our souls grieved by revolutions, 
find ourselves much conformed to the sentiments 
of those writers who have lived in the midst for 
eruptions and of an unhappy people. They only 
appear to us true and solid. The contempt for 
mankind, the doubt of their virtues, the want of 
hope in the future, the reflections from which no- 
thing consolatory flows ; these are the themes we 
resort to, with a sorrowful pleasure, in the produc- 
tions of the historian and the philosopher. 

We console ourselves with thinking that the past 
has not been either more happy or more worthy to be 
so. There is something nobler, and, perhaps, also 
more true, not to despair of men nor nations, in 
marking out to them a path to virtue and honour ; 
in giving them an impulse free and entire, and in 
drawing them away from that culpable indifference 
which can produce nothing but evil. If Montesquieu 
had flourished in our days, perhaps his works 
would have seemed more conversant in the pain- 
ful knowledge of the evil propensities of the hu- 
man heart ; but they would have wanted that 
fine combination, that firmness of principle which 

rea them a power so brilliant and persuasive. 
If we would further ascertain the progress phi- 
losophy heid made during fifty years, we must place 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 63 

together the " Spirit of the Laws," and the " Trea- 
tise on the Laws," which Domat put at the head 
of his work. Then we may see how much the 
spirit of examination had spread ; how questions 
were treated under a more general point of view ; 
how religion, respected by Montesquieu, was, not- 
withstanding, judged by him ; whilst Domat, who 
merely worshipped, had made every thing flow 
into it, instead of considering it as an accessary. 
If a man, serious and meditative, endowed with 
virtue and prudence, removes himself to the same 
point with another of the era preceding, who was 
occupied in the same study, and found in an 
analagous position, he may judge of the rapid pro- 
gress trifling and inconsiderate minds had succes- 
sively made. 

We have now followed, to the end of their 
career, those two great writers, in exhibiting, at one 
time, an outline of their character and their works, 
without digressing to bestow attention on the au- 
thors distinguished in the next degree below them. 

Returning now to our scheme, we proceed to 
examine the features that literature presents as a 
whole, at the time when Voltaire and Montesquieu 
occupied the supreme rank. 

It has already been remarked, by many writers, 
that when letters originate among a people, " it is 
not by the degree of mediocrity or worse," as 
Despreaux said very justly. 

The road is not yet traced : it is genius only that 



64 



\ TABLEAU OF 



can discover it, ind seize upon it exclusively. 
Men of mediocrity have not learnt to follow 

route ; they desire to find out the way, and they 
wander from it unceasingly. Bui when uniform suc- 
cess has served as an example, talents of an infe- 
rior order are eager to imitate it, and gather thereby 
a degree of reputation ; and, though they do not 
attain to that summit of glory which shines through 
centuries, and cannot compare with those power- 
ful geniuses that survive the nation which produced 
them, and the language in which they wrote ; yet 
at least their name is not forgotten by their con- 
temporaries, and their fame is continued in the 
generations following. That which may render 
the moment yet more worthy of attention, is, that 
it forms the transition between two diverse epochs. 
We see the growth and rapid development of the 
germ of all that was quickly to give another aspect 
to the human mind. The age had not yet taken 
its distinctive character, but all was ready for the 
change. Two men of genius only, each in his own 
way, had taken the new direction, and shewed in 
their writings a different spirit to all that had pre- 
ceded. 

The era of Louis XIV., in establishing a litera- 
ture that had become classical, had formed the 
taste of the nation. It was now more easy to 
write ; letters had diffused themselves more every 
day ; consequently they received more and more 
influence from society, and society acknowledged 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 65 

more and more the domination of letters. Already 
associations were formed, for the honour of assem- 
bling men of talent together, in which they sought 
the art of exciting their minds to enjoy every mo- 
ment ; in which they exalted their self-love by a 
continual flattery ; in which they habituated them- 
selves to substitute rapid observations, and subtle 
and fugitive expressions into conversation, for the 
ripened opinions, inwardly discussed with reflection 
and trouble ; and by which they created to themselves, 
by the charm of their minds, a rank and a power 
easily acquired and imprudently exercised. Thus 
literature, which formerly was a thing apart, a 
region foreign to the affairs of the world, a sanctu- 
ary interdicted to the vulgar and the frivolous, 
whose spirit sought abstraction and trouble, had now 
blended itself with the whole nation, become a part 
of its morals and dependent upon its character, which 
it also modified in its turn. The natural and accu- 
rate sciences began to attain some eclat, and to en- 
noble France ; they drew the attention of the public, 
and illustrated themselves by undertakings formed 
under the auspices of the sovereign. The discove- 
ries of Newton, the systems of Leibnitz were ad- 
mitted and spread, and excited a noble emulation. 
Foreign literature made way also. Voltaire had set 
the fashion, and every day saw new translations 
come to light. Voyages, likewise, had established 
between nations a communication more intimate 
and more complete than formerly : Europe had 



6') A TABLEAU OF 

empire, every province of which 
ll\ known tO the others. 

They began to agitate the question! of policy and 
public economy. 

Poetry, of the school of Louis XIV. still preserved 
3 ({uenee ; Voltaire had not yet acquired 
that renown which placed him, some years after, on 
the throne of letters. Contemporary poets were far 
from ratifying the decisions of the public. They 
had unceasingly placed the preceding generation in 
opposition to Voltaire, whom they ranked far below 
Corneille, Racine, Despreaux, Rousseau. The at- 
tacks of critics, were not in revolt against received 
opinions : they discussed merit as a passing thing. 
So Voltaire served not yet as a model — it was not 
he whom they imitated. 

Louis Racine, without passion, unable to excite 
a sustaining interest, continued, more than any 
other, faithful to the age that his father had ho- 
noured ; his verses were elegant and written with 
care, conscientiously and sincerely ; he was igno- 
rant of quackery in the management of his style, 
and when respect for religion was disappearing 
every day, he made it the subject of his songs. 
Le Franc de Pompignan tried to succeed Rous- 
lu, and, in spite of the anathema of ridicule 
hurled against his sacred poetry, by Voltaire, we 
may discover in it, besides one ode entirely perfect, 
a great number of remarkably fine stanzas. In tra- 
gedy, Voltaire had not a rival : a few years have 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 67 

been sufficient to consign to oblivion almost all 
those essays intended to share his triumphs. Some 
endeavoured to imitate the correctness of Racine, and 
to produce interest, more by the development of sen- 
timents than by the movement of situations ; others 
essayed the manner of Corneille, and applied them- 
selves more to find grandeur than truth ; they ob- 
tained success also in contriving skilfully a compli- 
cated intrigue, fertile in sudden revolutions. Some 
authors, taking example by Voltaire, attempted to 
trace an action, varied and rapid, in which the pas- 
sions might yield themselves to all their warmth and 
impetuosity. Thus tragedy, though many talents 
of second order had been exercised in it with honour, 
had not any very determined colour. 

Comedy, likewise, was cultivated with success by 
some authors of the moment, and even with success 
that was durable ; but it had quite changed its cha- 
racter. It was no more the naive and profound 
painting of the human heart, in which Moliere had 
excelled, and in which Dancourt and Le Sage had 
copied him. A certain language of convention had 
invaded comedy. Characters, manners, incidents 
even, were no longer taken from nature. Too happy 
when the painting of a momentary folly might have 
some truth, and yet it was rare that a faithful sketch 
was offered, even of that trifling outline. They 
sought carefully for gay and interesting situations, 
of which they calculated the effects without dream- 
ing that every thing is situation to him who tho- 
f 2 



68 A TVi.ii 11 OF 

roughly knows the heart and the character. They 
QOnoerted plans and contrasts to please and fascinate 
the spectator. The comic talent which reveals na- 
ture as it were by instinct, instead of anxiety as to 
the means art might furnish to produce effect, had 
disappeared. 

Such were the faults of the new school of comedy ; 
but, after having observed that it was no longer the 
same as in the times of Moliere, and that it formed 
quite another species of literary composition, we 
ought to say that, the style once admitted, the ta- 
lent showed itself likewise with some distinction. 
Writers had lost the truth of their personages, but 
there remained truth in their own minds and feel- 
ings. It sufficed if they brought the spectator to 
partake of the movement that inspired them ; to ob- 
tain and merit success. 

Whatever be the form given by a real inspiration 
it is sure to succeed. Thus the character of Me- 
tromane is assuredly conceived in an ideal man- 
ner, and is not a representation of nature ; but it is 
written with a felicity and truth of sentiment quite 
entrancing. We think not if other poets have 
thus done ; since we are assured that it was the 
soul of Piron powerfully and truly excited, when he 
made the Metromane speak, and of our own imme- 
diate sympathy with his emotion. 

Destouches, though he did not succeed so well, 
has, in two or three comedies, secured a durable re- 
putation. A pure and easy style, and engaging 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 69 

situations, would maintain the " Glorieux " and the 
" Philosophe marie " a long time on the stage, al- 
though we find in them characters entirely out of 
nature. 

Lachaussee, against whom some prejudices existed, 
shows, perhaps, a more original talent. Follies, mis- 
fortunes, vices, were not his fort ; when he essayed 
their delineation, he employed false colours ; but 
the delicacy of sentiment, the mild and true sensi- 
bility, the generous feelings which inspired him with 
a sort of warmth, without declamation or affectation, 
touch the heart ; in this species, the only one in 
which he succeeded, he is far from Terence and his 
moving simplicity, though he sometimes recals him 
to our minds. 

A more distinguished rank is reserved for Gresset, 
and he has more than one title to merit. The au- 
thor of " Ververt," though not placed above his 
contemporary comic poets, is sure not to be for- 
gotten. We may charge the comedy of the " Me- 
diant" with having too little action, with lack of 
interest and developement ; and perhaps Gresset 
should have shown more depth in the conception of 
his principal character ; perhaps he ought to have 
demonstrated to what spirit of vanity and emulation 
the vices of Cleon owed their origin ; and how, 
among a certain class of men, having neither virtue 
nor kindness, they might become an object for the 
struggles of self-love. Gresset seemed to think that 
the absence of every feeling of honesty and sym* 



A TABLEAU OF 

patliy might become a personal and solitary enjoy- 
ment* The gaiety hie gives to the M6chan1 is not 

natural. To do evil is only a pleasure when society 
recompenses ; and that happens often enough to 
have afforded Grease* opportunity of representing it. 
These faults are well compensated by the ease and 
elegance of the versification, by the true and ani- 
mated imitation of the tone of conversation then 
reigning in the world. 

The poesy and minor pieces of Gresset have less 
attractions than the lighter works of Voltaire. The 
mild and innocent pleasantry against the form of 
the pedant, unhappily have less effect than that 
which attacks subjects more conspicuous and im- 
portant. Gresset offers little more than common 
ideas, but his position in the world caused those 
ideas to appear to him new and piquant ; so his 
verses, far from seeming common, have the charm 
of nature and grace. 

To finish the tableau of the principal comic au- 
thors, we must speak of Marivaux, whose works 
have a singular character. A minute observer of 
the human heart, he made it his particular study to 
find out the minor motives of our sentiments and 
determinations. That was his talent, and we cannot 
object to the fidelity of his observations; but he 
should not have been too lavish in that kind of 
merit ; for we must remark, that in making a parade 
he diminished tin: effect. Marivaux gave us not the 
result of his observation, but the act of observation 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 71 

itself. The dialogue of each person is arranged in 
a manner to show that the theory of the heart was 
well known to the author. 

A scene of Moliere is a representation of nature ; 
a scene of Marivaux is a commentary upon nature. 
With such a manner of proceeding there is less 
place for the action than the sentiment. The author 
attaches so much importance to the exposition of 
causes, that the result remains without effect. Hence 
it happens, likewise, that the comedies of Marivaux 
are, all alike, to a point, that it is a trouble to 
distinguish one from the other ; it is always an in- 
sensible transition from one sentiment to another, 
described in unvaried tints. There results, too, 
another fault ; it is, that a developement made thus 
slowly, and step by step, cannot agree with the 
measure of time and events contained in a comedy ; 
and the progress so carefully managed, naturally 
conducts to that most desirable to avoid, namely, 
want of resemblance. 

The slower and more gradual course of a romance 
is better suited to that kind of composition. In 
renouncing the effects produced by rapid and pas- 
sionate movements, and confining himself to paint 
the smooth sentiments, of which the analysis makes 
us feel the charm, and giving little enough of ra- 
pidity to the events to describe the minutiae, Mari- 
vaux arrived at the capability to produce a romance 
full of charms and interest. 

In this branch of literature, which many writers, 



A TABL1 AU OF 

during the eighteenth century adorned, we must 
Forget the Abbe Piv\ost. The situation in which 
• author lived injured all his works. If he had 
been obliged to make his pen subservient as a 
continual means of subsistence, he would, undoubt- 
edly, have left a great reputation. In all that he 
wrote we find attractions and interest. He had a 
simplicity of relation : — nothing in his composition 
nor in his style aims at effect. He relates events, 
he paints situations, without appearing to be at all 
moved by them himself; but, as he used simplicity 
in his recitals, the reader is touched, as if the thing 
itself passed before his eyes. In general, he was 
little engaged in seeking for feelings ; but, on one 
occasion, he yielded to them, and, without departing 
from the manner which was his own, he became 
eminently touching. He was content in " Manon 
Lescaut" to be the historian of the passions, as 
lie had equally been in the composition of his other 
romances ; but he was so true, that he dispensed 
with eloquence, and painted the movements of the 
heart ; it was sufficient for him to do so. As a whole, 
the character of his works seems rather to belong 
to other times than his own. A naive manner of 
depicting that which they saw, or thought they saw ; 
thinking little ; neither unfolding sentiments nor 
ting them at any time; such was the style of 
the old narrators. 

The life of Prevost offers something estranged 
from the manners of his contemporaries ; in truth, 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 16 

he was released from the bonds and duties of so- 
ciety ; he shook off the yoke his situation imposed 
upon him ; he lived in disorder ; and yet he did not 
raise up a system of principles to clear himself. 
He did not boast of his conduct; he erred, but 
not to make his errors of importance enough to de- 
sire others to imitate them : at that epoch such a 
character began to be rare. 

We now enter upon the second epoch of the 
century so particularly marked. 

At this time it w T as no more superior minds only 
who boldly asserted their ideas ; writers of an in- 
ferior order walked in the same steps ; the whole 
of literature took the same character, and the new 
opinions spread themselves through all kinds of 
writings. It is curious to follow this elevation of 
letters and philosophy by which they seemed to 
usurp universal dominion. 

We shall endeavour to ascertain how opinions 
seized upon literature, thereby finding means to 
subjugate France and to dazzle Europe; how im- 
prudently their domination was exercised, and how, 
without precisely aiming at it, they concurred with 
the manners, institutions and government, in ef- 
fecting a disastrous revolution. Perhaps the mi- 
nistry of Cardinal Fleury contributed, in some 
sort, to arrest, for a time, the progress of this move- 
ment. That venerable man had ability sufficient 
to finish his days tranquilly in the midst of power, 
but neither strength nor penetration enough to im- 



\ TABLEAU OF 



part i more durable effect to Ins government. He 
appeared anxious only to terminate peacefully, and 
without opposition, hi8 long career. His thoughts 
e without forecast, as those of extreme old age 
often are. Once, when refusing a favour to the 
1 1 lis, the cardinal said to him, " Vous ne 
l'obtiendrez pas Unit que je vivrai ;" the young man 
replied, l ' J'attendrai ;" and a few years after lie 
ruled France. He appeared to have had the same 
influence over the new opinions. They were sus- 
pended during his life ; when he was no more, they 
exercised absolute sway. 

Before we discourse of those men designated 
more particularly as the philosophers of the eighteenth 
century, we are about to name a writer who must 
be separated from them. Vauvenargues was not a 
stranger to the influence of the times ; yet the par- 
ticular study that he made of the authors of the 
preceding century, the admiration with which they 
inspired him, drew him from the route of his con- 
temporaries ; he fell not, like them, into a frivolous 
disdain for his predecessors, and by that was spared 
many of their errors. It was in the school of 
Pascal that he learnt to sound the human heart ; 
the school of l ; enelon taught him to succour and 
encourage it. We experience a delightful feeling 
on seeing a moralist exempt from that sadness, 
ban id contempt for mankind which almost 

always follow the study in which he engages. He 
ondemned to a twofold and contradictory pu- 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 75 

nishment, who, so proud before others, bears within 
himself, and for his torment, a feeling of humilia- 
tion that nourishes reflection and self-knowledge. 
He cannot revolt against calumny, and, when the 
opinions which degrade human nature are presented 
to him with some degree of force, he adopts them 
with eagerness, for they are conformed to the im- 
pressions he has often proved. When we find, 
under the precepts of religion, the feeling of self- 
contempt, which converts some and afflicts others, 
the sentiment makes us better and happier. If it 
destroy terrestrial affections, it gives more power 
to the love of divine things. Thus Pascal and 
Bossuet, in spite of their disdain for the human 
creature, neither wither nor discourage the soul ; 
or at least into the wounds which they make, they 
pour a celestial balm to heal them ; but to destroy 
religion, and impair the virtues of man, is a me- 
lancholy and perverse pursuit. 

Vauvenargues had not the firm persuasion and 
earnest desire after religion that inspired the genius 
of the Christian philosophers ; but his mind could 
not do without noble and elevated feelings, nor did 
he apply himself to blemish those which men had 
proved independently of a positive belief; on the 
contrary, he developed them with a sort of predi- 
lection ; he did not despair of humanity, and his 
moral tends to dignify it. We owe him more than 
admiration — he merits our gratitude. Let us not 
forget that Vauvenargues had shewn, in some cri- 



76 I TABLEAU OF 

I, a taste afl pure as his morality, and 
s the tirst completely to appreciate Racine. We 
must remark, also, that it was a disciple of Vol- 
taire, instructed by his daily conversations, who did 
that justice to Racine. 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 77 



CHAPTER V. 



The character of those men who devoted themselves 
to letters and the sciences, had much altered. For- 
merly, a small number only were spread throughout 
the whole of Europe, writing in a language un- 
known to the vulgar, living in a time when that 
which has been since called society and conversa- 
tion did not exist, and devoted to science ; the 
world and other men affected them but little, and 
they were little known to them. Hence their un- 
bounded love of the study they cultivated, that free 
and entire complacence in the knowledge they had 
acquired, the disdain for the suffrages of the world, 
the sincerity which exposed them to ridicule with- 
out their perceiving it — in short, all that composed 
the severe pedantry of the first erudites. By de- 
grees, the labours of those studious men bare fruit; 
knowledge began to circulate ; it formed to itself a 
public ; then it was to that, and no longer to their 
own approbation, writers addressed their works ; it 
was that they desired to please ; they attached 



78 TABLEAU OF 

more importance to their success, leu to then- com- 
positions; they not only exerted themselves to do 

well, but they wished to succeed also. Besides, 
imless thej had taken care, communicating with 
other men, their influence would have been re- 
sented ; there was a sort of harmony formed be 
tween the ideas circulating around them, and those 
to which their genius gave birth. The public, that 
had become their judge, was at first composed of 
those men whose situation permitted leisure. 

In times little civilized, the class is not very nu- 
merous. It was at first for princes and their cour- 
tiers that literature descended from the heights of 
erudition ; writers seeking the approbation of those 
men so elevated above them, w T ere not humiliated 
by inferiority of position ; the applauses of princes 
flattered and honoured them ; they sought such 
success with deference and respect. They wen 
doubtless an irritable race of writers. 

Racine revenged himself, in his epigrams, on 
M. de Crequi, who had disparaged his verses; but 
he would not have been distressed at a circumstance 
that had marked a difference of rank. Pride was 
less in the person than in the performance. After- 
wards, by the effect of civilization, the idle class 
was more numerous ; then, as the public, more ex- 
tender!, had sought, as a want, intellectual and li- 
terary enjoyments, and, at the same time, the court 
had lost a part of its consideration, men of letters 
acquired a position more independent; the chief 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 79 

sum of their works and themselves was no longer 
applied to the favour of power ; then they disco- 
vered that they occupied an inferior place in the 
state ; their pride took offence at it, and their opi- 
nions by that were modified. 

Of the rest, this is not an accusation particularly 
intended for the literary class; as, in truth, all men 
who find themselves in an independent position, 
and at the same time inferior, experience almost 
always a feeling of revolt against that inequality, 
the necessity of which seems not indicated by the 
order of things. That which we have said of the 
literati applies equally to every class in the nation ; 
among them all, we might see the spirit of equality 
rapidly bursting forth with civilization, and result- 
ing from the change in the manner of life, from the 
intercourse between men, from the progress of their 
reflections, and, more than all, by the political nul- 
lity in the first orders of the state. We might also 
observe the difference of rank becoming more and 
more insupportable, because it had no longer a real 
foundation, and seemed borne in falsehood. Those 
who study the history of pride in France will quickly 
discover a great portion of the causes of the revolu- 
tion that France has proved. 

The period was also calculated to give writers a 
lofty idea of their own importance. Frederick II., 
employing every means to elevate his empire to the 
first rank, had drawn near to him a crowd of French 
literati, and had finished by attracting Voltaire ; he 



80 ! F,AU OF 

placed, almost on the same level, supreme power 
and superiority of mind ; forgetting that the two 
despotisms eould not long exist together in peace. 
The most illustrious of sovereigns thus courted the 
friendship of a poet! There was in that alone suf- 
ficient to excite the pride of the literati. They fan- 
cied they saw those days return, in which the sages 
of Greece were called to the courts of kings, to 
give their counsel, and into the republics, to make 
laws. As such, nothing further stopped their flight: 
(very thing was within their domain ; morals, poli- 
tics, religion, were submitted to their revision. Their 
hope was not disappointed. The glory and conse- 
quence of French writers were always increasing ; 
from the extremes of the North homage was sent to 
them, and their presence requested ; kings were 
desirous of learning the smallest details of that 
literature, the object of conversation throughout 
Europe ; they came in person to visit the men, and 
the academies which adorned France ; the people 
demanded a constitution of the philosophers ; men 
of condition conformed themselves to their school ; 
the reigning government struggled feebly, and with 
irresolution, against the influence; but, as France 

d neither glory nor power to the government — 
as the army was without eclat, the court without 
(i unity, manners without chastity, the state without 

5, the defenders of religion without fidelity, 
public opinion turning entirely to the side of a phi- 

• phy that gratified every species of self-love — it 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 81 

disengaged itself from all bonds, and erected a sys- 
tem of contempt for power, that indeed it was then 
become difficult to respect. Assuredly philosophy 
might well bear, in its character, some presages 
of disorder and destruction ; but it was not in that 
we have to remark the most irremediable and fear- 
ful symptoms. 

A monarch indolent and egotistical, seeking 
pleasure ' with disgraceful mistresses ; the noblesse 
professing immorality with impudence ; ministers 
occupied mostly in intrigues ; generals who had 
learnt the military art in the saloons ; the influence 
of women recognized as a principle ; every species 
of vanity conflicting the one against the other ; 
every right contested, consequently every duty con- 
testable ; certes, there is warranty much more ter- 
rible of a revolution, than was in the pride and 
imprudence of philosophers, and the seven years' 
war brought us nearer to the catastrophe than the 
Encyclopaedia. Nevertheless, not to be unjust, we 
must confess that, in the midst of that thirst for 
reputation and influence, the literati had an eager 
desire for good, an emulation to excel, which made 
an illusion in their sentiments of self-love. They 
took the desire to reign over all things, and to 
change them to their will, for a devotedness to the 
good of humanity and the advancement of know- 
ledge ; having thus, to their own eyes, disguised, 
under honourable appearances, the dispositions by 
which they were animated, nothing could make 



82 A TABLEAU OF 

thorn look into themselves. Hence the peremptory 

tone, the intimate persuasion in their own ideas, 
the self-complacency, the absence of doubt and 
hesitation, the ardour for proselytes, the haughty 
intolerance, with which they have been so mucjh 
reproached. 

We must not, however, imagine that this cha- 
racter reigned exclusively in all their writings. We 
rind at intervals certain returns, certain restric- 
tions, and some instances of circumspection and 
reserve. But their principles, spreading through 
the works of inferior writers and among the popu- 
lace, did not always preserve the limits which they 
had sometimes imposed. We may judge by this 
the bent of the public for which they laboured ; 
they plunged into the stream, and the course was 
; apid that the efforts made to retard it were not 
even perceived. Nothing could then encourage 
writers to bear in their doctrines a spirit of wisdom 
and moderation so little relished at that time. The 
depositaries of power saw, with mistrust, the cha- 
racter and tendency of philosophers. They did 
not perceive that the evil was in the nation ; they 
believed all was cured in preventing the external 
iptoms as they manifested themselves. So when 
they saw the philosophical society form the vast 
enterprise of an Encyclopedia, that immense frame 
in which all opinions might develope, the alarm 
- great in the ministry. They wished to arrest 
j examination which they took for a 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 83 

pretext to attack every thing. The best means to 
prevent a danger that they greatly exaggerated, 
had, doubtless, been to accord protection and en- 
couragement to the undertaking; they would, in 
that way, have acquired a marked influence over 
the work ; — in pleasing the authors they would 
have modified their dispositions and counteracted 
them ; but they committed a fault very common 
with governors — they would stop the course of 
things instead of directing them to their profit. 

The obstacles put to the publication of the work 
injured the execution as much as its direction. If 
it had been published in tranquillity, it would, in a 
great measure, have had its true destination ; it 
would have been a monument of the state of 
science at that epoch, and so have become useful. 
Nothing so much improves human knowledge as 
examining the progress already made. We follow 
those steps ; we see how they have erred, and 
wherefore ; we throw a coup-d'ceil over the whole 
of science, and it becomes more simple and more 
fruitful. The best way to advance is to look over 
the route already performed. 

Instead of producing a uniform effect, the En- 
cyclopedia immediately changed into a party affair. 
It became more important for those who had pro- 
jected it, to make it see the light, than to render 
it worthy ; and, as it was constituted in defiance 
of established order, their pride applied itself to 
spread in the Encyclopedia that which they called 
g 2 



84 a T.\r.i.r..u' of 

new and bold truths ; thus it became an incom- 
plete and less useful work. That which lias been 
undertaken since 1 , is, without doubt, conceived after 
a much better plan, more rich in science, and more 
conformable to its true end. 

After having- spoken in a general manner of the 
character and philosophical spirit of the period, 
and of the circumstances in which it took birth, 
we come now to the examination of the systems and 
opinions it was to conduct, adopt, and to spread. 
We have seen what writers were relatively to moral 
and political order ; let us enquire what critics 
might think of their works, considered in them- 
selves, and what place they ought to occupy iri the 
history of letters. 

The Encyclopaedia was proudly intended to give 
centuries to come a lofty idea of the immense 
progress they thought made in human acquire- 
ments; to consider them under a new point of 
view ; and in a spirit that was to change the cha- 
racter of almost all the sciences. In effect, they 
fancied they had discovered a new way to the 
common source, and traced the progress of the 
operations of the human mind by a route newly 
adopted. 

We are taught this in the preliminary discourse 
to the Encyclopedia ; a work that had great suc- 
, and which announced the enterprise in a 
brilliant manner. 

D'Alembert, if we may believe the impartial tes- 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 85 

timony of the mathematicians, was a genius of the 
first order, and he has left in the career traces of 
his toil. Without being very learned in the mat- 
ter, we are not astonished at this judgment, in 
reading a portion of the introductory discourse to 
the Encyclopedia, that has reference to the accu- 
rate sciences. Perhaps, there never has been 
brought, into the examination of principles and 
their results, more ingenuity and sincerity. The 
analysis that makes their procedure, the way in 
which truth is shewn, acquiring the more certainty 
when it makes abstraction from a great number of 
circumstances, and being only truly complete when 
it becomes the identity of two signs expressing the 
same idea, belongs only to a man who hovers over 
the higher regions of the science he professes. But 
the other part of the discourse is far from giving an 
equally elevated idea of D'Alembert. When he 
comes to treat of the sources and principles of the 
other divisions of human knowledge, he then shews 
himself incomplete and superficial. If he had a 
profound notion of the sciences that classify and 
compare our perceptions, he was far from knowing 
those that consist in describing the impressions on 
the mind. 

There are two modes of considering metaphysics : 
one occupies itself with the inward man, the faculties 
and aspirations of the soul, its future destiny, its es- 
sence, and the nature of its action. The difficulty of 
this science is in uniting the soul with the operations 



86 A TABLEAU OF 

I f the body, and to find out at once the limit and 
transition between moral and physical action. 

The other theory is completely opposed to 
this : it divides exterior objects, seeks their me- 
chanical action upon man, examines sensations, 
their immediate results, and the readiest way 
to be taken in the endeavour to arrive from 
without at the central point, that constitutes the 
human being. But when they would join the 
animal operations to the operations of the soul, the 
inexplicable appearances and the chain, whether 
they took the one side, or whether they took the 
other, they always lost themselves. Thus there 
were the two sciences — the science of thought, and 
the science of sensation ; which seemed, at the 
first aspect, to have the same domain, though they 
did not attain to it. In dividing the inward affec- 
tions of the soul, they could not arrive at sensa- 
tion ; and however far they might push the theory 
of sensation, they could not say how it became a 
thought. As those who cultivated these sciences 
could not discover that wherein they lacked, the first 
came to deny the operation of exterior objects, the 
second found themselves brought to disown the 
existence of the soul. But, in general, the last 
gave way before the consequent, which, in effect, 
was more absurd than the other. 

Formerly, neglecting to examine all the mechan- 
ism of the senses, all the direct affinities of the body 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 87 

with objects, philosophers investigated principally 
that which passes within the man. 

The study of the soul, — such was the noble oc- 
cupation of Descartes, Pascal, Mallebranche, Leib- 
nitz, — that conducts us directly to all the questions 
most important to our hearts. They rejected the 
thoughts that refer to the outward sense, and well 
considered that particular metaphysical question, 
since called the formation of ideas ; but, following 
it, they touched too little at the foundation of 
things to give them their attention ; perhaps they 
sometimes lost themselves in the clouds of those 
lofty regions in which they took their flight ; per- 
haps their labours had no direct application, but at 
least they followed an elevated study ; their doc- 
trine was in affinity with the thoughts that agitate 
us when we profoundly reflect within ourselves, 
and necessarily conducts us to the nobler sciences 
of religion and morals ; it supposes, in those who 
cultivate it, an aspiring genius, and extensive me- 
ditations. 

We were tired of following them ; we treated 
them as vain subtilties, and branded with the title 
of scholastic reveries the works of those great 
minds ; we plunged into the science of sensation, 
hoping that it would be more within reach of hu- 
man intelligence ; we established, as a basis, that 
the study of the soul was useless, since we were 
ignorant of its nature, without discovering, by the 



^S \ TAMUULV OF 

role, thai uc made it a constant and inva- 
riable faculty, always exercising the same kind of 
action: we avowed our ignorance, and bonded a 

■m upon a much more hazardous supposition, 
much less reasonable, than all those we had re- 
jected. Having then made the soul a sort of vital 
principle, a neuter faculty, attached by bonds yet 
unknown to a certain assemblage of matter, we 
devoted ourselves more and more to the mechanical 
affinity of man with objects, and their influence 
upon his physical organization. So that meta- 
physics were constantly lowering, until, with some 
persons, the science was almost confounded with 
physiology. 

At the same period, a neighbouring nation (Ger- 
many) acquired the proud inheritance of the higher 
philosophy ; and had the advantage of us in the 
towering elevation it gave to the science of thought, 
and in disdaining our narrow mode of arguing 
upon the soul, and other faculties of the human 
being. 

The eighteenth century would lead us to think 
this manner of considering man as one of the prin- 
cipal titles to glory. 

Locke had already pursued the same direction, 
and was engaged in developing the same questions. 
But he appears not so desirous, as his disciples 
were, that all science should be reduced to the ex- 
amin nsations. He, doubtless, knew that the 

first mechanism of the human understanding, even 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 89 

when it could not be united, as in effect it is, to the 
fundamental question, was far from constituting the 
whole essence of man. Leibnitz, who assisted at 
the birth of that school, exhibits a sort of pity for 
the superficial philosophy of Locke. 

The philosophy of the Encyclopedists seized upon 
the ideas of Locke, and followed them to their final 
consequences. The system is implicitly professed 
in the introductory discourse to the Encyclopedia. 
But it is not to that we must have recourse, if we 
desire to be well informed. It is not there unfolded 
clearly and completely. 

Condillac, who wrote a little before the epoch, is 
the chief of the school ; and in his works metaphy- 
sics exercise all the seductions of method and lu- 
cidity — the more clear when least profound. Few 
writers have realized more success. He reduced to 
the capacity of the vulgar the science of thought, in 
retrenching every thing that soared above them. 
Every one was surprised, and proud to become a 
philosopher so easily ; and felt much gratitude to 
him who had conferred the benefit. They did not 
discover that he had lowered the science to them, 
instead of making his disciples capable of attaining 
to it. This new metaphysic did not retard the 
extension of its influence over all other theories. 
There was very soon a new mode of examining every 
branch of human knowledge, of establishing the 
principles and linking the arguments. It was a 
change the more important, as the ideas and the 



90 A TABLEAU OF 

opinions that it spread have, so to speak, become 
classical in France, and have now insulated ns from 
the ancient philosophy and the foreign schools. 

The mathematical and natural sciences accommo- 
date themselves very well to the theory of sensation ; 
perhaps it is to their spirit that it owes its origin ; 
at least, it is true, that it received at the time an 
impulse which gave it a rapid progress. Those 
sciences seek to discover what the nature is in itself, 
independently of the effect it produces upon each 
human being. To arrive at that point, they were 
careful to separate the impression produced by ob- 
jects, from the particular circumstances which ren- 
der it different for each individual. They applied 
themselves to consider the impression in a unique 
point of view ; by which means they rendered it 
identical for all mankind ; to the end that each 
might build the same edifice upon the same founda- 
tion. They tried to obtain, by that abstraction, a 
net produce of sensation, if one may so speak, in 
order to have a solid base of reasoning. Thus, to 
regard objects and their modifications as absolute, 
is a march conformable to the spirit of those sci- 
ences. 

But the inclination most natural to man, is not 
to labour to render his ideas like those of all other 
men. Quite the contrary : he endeavours unceas- 
ingly to make others partake of his own impression, 
such as he has conceived, without abstraction from 
any circumstance. A sentiment of sympathy creates 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 91 

in him a desire to excite in others the feeling he 
experiences. To proceed by way of demonstration, 
agreeably to the mathematical sciences, is assuredly 
a satisfaction to the human mind ; it is an artificial 
means of arriving at a truth, which is only another 
name for universal accord. To proceed by way of 
persuasion is much more in human nature : and to 
communicate a thought such as one has imagined, 
is a greater satisfaction than to enter into the consent 
of all, by an abstract notion without reality. Every 
thing which can act upon the heart of man, touch 
his individuality, penetrate into the interior of him- 
self, belongs to this second operation. The princi- 
ples of religion, morals, politics, eloquence, poetry, 
the arts of the imagination, could not exist, if they 
were not the intimate and complete thought of each 
man. To imagine, as some have thought, that by 
force of reasoning, we shall dispose of these prin- 
ciples of proceeding, and compose, by mathematical 
rule, a man cannot have exercised self-reflection. 

With the slightest attention we shall see that 
abstract truth and demonstration, are as foreign 
to the individual, as the individual is to the exte- 
rior ; whilst truth of sentiment and persuasion 
make part of the man himself, and is a mode of 
his thought and of his being. Besides, each of the 
directions in which the spirit of man operates be- 
comes united to a correspondent disposition of 
soul. 

We would not say if there be innate ideas. In 



i \i 01 

the I6I1M in which the term tk idea" is taken, it 
I us bO us that it cannot there have the meaning; 
hut the soul has always its necessary dispositions 
belon^iiej; to its own nature, independently of ex- 
terior circumstances, found in all states of civi- 
lization under all the varieties of physical struc- 
ture, which make the distinctive character of the 
man, as much as his corporeal form. Those 
dispositions are more or less developed, more or 
less capable of expressing themselves. The senses 
affect matter in proportion to their susceptibility. 

Thus we shall every where find in man, the sen- 
timent of infinity ; we see him enlarging his de- 
sires beyond his wants ; coveting more when 
they are satistified ; seeking something yet unat- 
tainable ; supposing a future life ; respecting and 
burying the dead because he cannot think all 
annihilated for ever ; unquiet from the course of 
nature, not believing it immutable ; suspecting its 
commencement and dreading its destruction. Such 
in the nature of man, is the disposition that ren- 
ders him religious ; take any savage you will, you 
will perceive in his heart a fibre destined to this 
species of sentiment. 

It is then the inclination of the soul, it is the 
interior revelation, that is the principle of religion. 
But the theory of sensation cannot take a dispo- 
sition of soul as the base of its reasonings, since it 
makes it a power constant and neuter, a discolored 
tablet, on which, through the senses, exterior ob- 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 93 

jects are painted : it is then forced to make for 
each theory, that which is made for the man him- 
self ; to examine by the outside, instead of pene- 
trating to the inmost sanctuary ; to find out how 
sensations and physical mechanism can have given 
birth to such and such tendency of the human mind ; 
so that it takes the habit of considering, in detail, 
those things that ought to be viewed collectively. 
In examining the march of ideas, it has not arrived 
at the soul in following the course of sensation, 
neither can it come to the discovery of the particu- 
lar centre to which each sphere of human know- 
ledge is united. This method, by analysis, applied 
to things not within its jurisdiction, is, doubtless, 
convenient to dissolve and to destroy ; for having, 
from the first, broken the fundamental principle, it 
is easy to attack, piece by piece, every thing de- 
rived from it. We feel neither the union nor the 
necessity. To suppose even that it be possible to 
demonstrate the first causes from the lowest effects, 
it is needful, in the examination by detail, to 
omit nothing ; it is necessary to find the reciprocal 
affinities, and seek with care, all the diverse ele- 
ments that should serve to build the arguments by 
which we ought to ascend to principles ; it is need- 
ful to invest the ground entirely and find out 
that which may border upon it ; without that, the 
science will be incomplete ; we shall discover that 
it has a false origin. We should even be the more 
hurried away, the greater the clearness, method and 



A TABLEAU 0] 

and precision. In imitation of the exact Bciem 
we should tirst make abstraction from a crowd of 
circumstances, in order that the reasoning have a 
progress lest embarrassed, and afterwards we should 
to re-enter, one by one, into the circum- 
ices, before drawing the inference. 

It was thus in establishing the moral, we only 
sought to divide it from the feeling of justice and 
benevolence that lives in the breast of all men, and 
combats, more or less, with his other dispositions, in 
order to found it upon a fact common to animal 
nature generally, the desire of preservation and 
well-being, whence the love of personal interest is 
derived. 

As for religion, nothing in the physical being of 
man could conduct us to it ; it was impossible to 
unite it by force of argument, to sensual ideas ; we 
very soon denied it altogether ; already incredu- 
lity had rejected the proofs of a divine revelation, 
and had abjured the duties and remembrances of 
Christians ; then we saw atheism raising a more 
hardened front, and proclaiming that all religious 
feeling was a reverie of a disordered mind. It is to 
the epoch of the Encyclopaedia, that we date the 
writings in which the opinion is most expressly pro- 
fessed. It was little adopted. Impiety, since 
avoiding the absurdity of dogmatical atheism, took 
Iter in a vague incredulity. Nevertheless, athe- 
istical writers were more injurious than they were 
generally believed. They powerfully contributed to 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 95 

corrupt the lower classes. We often now find traces 
of their influence upon the uninformed minds of men 
in inferior stations. Their effect has been the 
greater from portions of their works blending 
quickly with all those infamous productions that, 
circulating clandestinely, poisoned the minds of the 
populace. Obscenity also, took a philosophical 
colour, and constantly mixed its turpitude with 
irreligion. 



96 A TABLEAU OF 



CHAPTER VI. 



Politics could no longer build upon historical 
traditions, upon positive rights, upon ancient laws, 
upon the morals of nations ; those considerations 
could not furnish the basis of a precise and univer- 
sal science. Society was regarded as an assemblage 
of individuals united for the defence of their mutual 
interests. All the theory was to repose upon the 
first fact, and then we might easily pursue the 
route by abstraction. Thus we came to think that 
the same policy, the same regimen, were better 
than all the minuter modifications connected with 
them. 

Formerly we had considered the constitution of 
a people to be the whole of its morals, its laws, its 
character, all the interior as well as exterior cir- 
Climstancea ; in like manner that the constitution of 
;u i individual composes all the circumstances which 
make him live. In the new politics — the consti- 
tution wa> ;i textual rule deduced from the general 
theory, to be suddenly imposed upon a nation. 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 97 

The manner in which the word was insensibly 
changed from its primitive meaning, shows, better 
than a long detail, the process of reasoning adopted 
in politics. 

A new science was born, at this time, called 
' Political Economy :' it inquired into the source of 
the wealth of citizens and of nations, and how the 
existence of a people, and the greater or less extent 
of their prosperity, depend upon the pecuniary and 
commercial relations of individuals and the country 
at large. The theory of the circulation of money, 
public and particular, was ingeniously and clearly 
established, and realized an extraordinary success. 

Almost the whole of Europe received, with a 
sort of enthusiasm, the systems of the economists 
for the public good. Even sovereigns openly ho- 
noured the new legislators. They participated in 
their hopes, and believed that those friends of man- 
kind were to subjugate by the evidence of reason ; 
and to force kings and people, by a luminous cal- 
culation of their interests, the one to be always 
just, the other to be always submissive. But to 
arrive at a mathematical certainty, they neglected 
many elements that it had been necessary to con- 
sider. 

They had well seen that, in the movement of 
interests, all tended to a certain equilibrium ; but 
they had not held account of the oscillations which 
might have preceded, and that those oscillations 
might be insupportable calamities. 






A TAP* LEVI OF 



h also was a data that never entered 
their calculations ; but the greatest error 

IH tl reckoned as nothing 

the pinion and human passion. We 

hare since profited by their labours, and supplied 
those omissions. The theory has ceased to be ma- 
thematical. It is no longer a series of axioms. 
whence incontestible conclusions are derived. In 
becoming less precise and less certain, it has been 
more applicable and useful. It is no more a law 
that governs despotically the public administration, 
but it is the councils that guide. 

As for the arts of the imagination, they were, in 
the eyes of the new metaphysic, no longer a ma- 
nifestation of man's inward impression, and of the 
effects objects had produced upon him ; but an 
imitation, more or less faithful, of those objects; a 
collection of signs which represented them. The 
artist and the poet were no longer regarded as the 
creators, but as the industrious copyists ; forgetting 
that their talent consisted in painting that which 
they felt. 

But it was grammar and all the science of lan- 
guage that received, more than any other branch 
of human knowledge, a face entirely new. 

Dun u the steps of Port-Royal, 

had laboured to unite grammar in an immediate 
manner with the art of reasoning. Condillac and 
Due 1 him, took a derivation from 

the new metaphysic. From their researches re- 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 39 

suited a theory of language, clear and methodical, 
which quickly made amends for the ancient nomen- 
clature. Instead of referring all language to the 
Latin language, and adapting all grammar to the 
forms of one only, they tried to find the general 
rules from which the particular rules of each lan- 
guage might branch out. But grammarians fell 
into an error. In the same way that we thought 
to reach the human soul by the science of sen- 
sation, so we thought that grammar contained the 
art of writing ; that is to say, it might furnish rules 
to men by which to communicate their impressions. 
Metaphysicians had supposed that thought was 
the faithful image of exterior objects, and had al- 
most introduced mechanism into its formation. 
Grammarians followed the same process ; they 
transformed, in like manner, thought into speech ; 
regarding words as an invariable expression of 
ideas. Whilst the language that takes every mo- 
ment a form and a colour, differing in each indi- 
vidual, agreeably to the impression he experiences ; 
the language that is indebted for all its effects, 
not to the representation of objects, but to the 
picture of the affections of the soul excited by 
those objects ; that language unceasingly contra- 
dicts all the systems of grammar and metaphysics. 
Then the theory began to attack languages them- 
selves, and decided that they were not conformed 
to those principles ; they forgat that apparently 
h2 



a I \rar.\r of 

they are id the nature of man, since they h 
d formed by hia habits and his wants. 

It was proclaimed that the perfect idiom should 

Bsemblage of signs, each irrevocably united 
to the same idea, and bound together by constant 
affinity. Algebra was called the model of lan- 
We would fetter the thought, and circum- 
scribe it to its formal expression ; and, as metaphysi- 
cians had considered it uniform and identical in all 
men, their grammar could not lose much in lending 
itself to such a language. 

Algebra is doubtless the finest of all languages, 
in the same sense that the mathematical sciences 
are the most true of all the sciences. Mathematical 
truth is the result of the comparison and combina- 
tion of factitious ideas, owing their birth to ab- 
stractions made by a labour of the human mind. 
Therefore, algebra is the language best suited to 
the inquiry into that species of truth. It recals to 
the mind continually, that the idea expressed by a 
i is such as we had at first decreed it ; that ab- 
stract idea shall be the same for all, shall make no 
impression different from that which another might 
conceive. 

Bsist that language we trod on a sure ground 

in mathematical reasoning, and in the discovery of 

abstract and artificial truth. But when we have to 

render an account of the impressions that are not 

same in all, and even differ every moment in 



FREXCH LITERATURE. 101 

each individual ; when we would quit the sphere of 
mathematical ideas, — ideas rendered completely alike 
in each man — then we must have a flexible language, 
that may receive from each the testimony which he 
experiences, and varying in form and power with 
the speaker, to trace the image of his soul and of 
his character. The new systems of grammar con- 
duct us, also, to another way of seeing what yet 
results from that of regarding: ideas as the absolute 
images of objects, and as identical in all men. The 
one makes each man forced to express himself after 
one rule ; the others come no longer to attach im- 
portance to the expression of the ideas, but to the 
forms of language. 

The ideas following them being the same in all 
individuals, it was indifferent whether they were 
comprised in one way or in the other. Hence, all 
the blasphemies against poetry and style ; hence the 
assertion that thoughts were every thing, and elo- 
quence nothing worth. Yes, without doubt, they 
are every thing ; for it is impossible to separate 
them from that which we have called style ; it is 
their immediate production. It is the manner in 
which they affect men, that the manner in which they 
express themselves depends. If a man be forcibly 
moved, language, by an irresistible penchant, takes 
the form and colour of his ideas, and communicates 
to other men, as by sympathy, a common impression. 

Thought is like the daughter of Jupiter, who 
sprang completely armed from his brain. A great 



A TABLEAU Or 

writer, contemporaneous with the new gramman- 
the fallacy of their principles, and said 
truth, " Style is the man himself." Who can 
doubt it ; since it reveals to us the operation of 
thought upon the man, and, consequently, what is 
the thought in him ? 

Perhaps it will appear puerile to cite an example. 
When Chimene exclaims to Rodrigue : — " Va, je ne 
te hais pas ;" in the eyes of a cold analysis, it is say- 
ing in a different form, " Va, je t'aime." If, how- 
ever, she had pronounced the last words, she would 
have been quite another character ; she would have 
insulted the manes of her father ; she would have 
had neither charm nor modesty. 

These vain distinctions between the thought and 
the style, were not known in the seventeenth cen- 
tury. We judged ideas and sentiments, we found 
them false or true, good or bad ; when we were 
shocked by a discourse, we took no notice of its 
form, but ascended to its source, and blamed the 
luthor for having thought ill. 

Style in those times was only grammatical cor- 
rectness. 

Now we speak of style as of the music of an 
opera ; and we mean to say, that with certain arti- 
fices of style, with certain procedures skilfully per- 
formed, we can render new and original common 
thoughts. It is making the art of writing a mecha- 
nical art. 

Of the rest, they were not poets who meditated 



\ 

FRENCH LITERATURE. 103 

poetry ; they were not writers of an animated style, 
who would wither it. Lamothe and Fontenelle had 
professed similar opinions ; they regarded poetry as 
a factitious form given to thought. With them it 
was not a spontaneous production ; it was the re- 
sult of labour and industry. Thus they spake as 
they felt upon poetry, and, therefore, with truth 
and persuasion. 

In the school of French metaphysicians of the 
eighteenth century, there was one, who, in pur- 
suing the same steps, was animated by a totally 
different spirit. Charles Bonnet devoted himself 
more than any other to the development of the 
theory of sensations, and to gain an intimate 
knowledge of man ; but the conclusions he en- 
deavoured to draw, from the whole of his opi- 
nions, were not analagous with the tendency of 
those of Condillac or his disciples. This shows a 
striking example of the direct liaison that unites 
morals and letters. A little people, inhabiting the 
borders of France, speaking the same language, 
reading the same books, drawn nearer by a daily 
connection with the metropolitan literature, loving 
knowledge, zealous for the progress of the human 
mind, inclined to the study of nature and the 
exact sciences, learned in foreign languages, and 
every movement that the eighteenth century 
stamped in France — such was the republic of 
Geneva, which felt these movements perhaps more 
forcibly than any ; yet, as morals there were severe, 



\ TABLEAU 01 

religion respected, the action of the laws constant 
and regular, and their habits ancient and firm ; no 
movement spread a spirit of doubt and levity, nor 
attacked any of the observances of society: their 
writers preserved a veneration for all that preced- 
ing generations had respected, and were more 
javr and circumspect. Its society was composed 
of men instructed and animated by a lively interest 
in letters, but reserved and reflective in their judg- 
ments and opinions. Bonnet set out from the 
same point absolutely with Condillac ; he supposed 
that man is a statue, endowed with an unknown 
principle, which he considered as having no parti- 
cular property ; but all the faculties of which 
springing up, form and develope themselves by the 
action of exterior objects : he brought, however, 
into this history of the creation of man by his 
sensations, more reflection and impartiality than 
any other metaphysician ; and kept himself from 
many omissions and errors in the details into which 
Condillac had fallen : but he is most distinguished, 
by his anxious endeavour all his life, to unite this 
theory with the moral nature and with religious 
creeds. He was full of love and zeal for the na- 
tural sciences, which he cultivated with success ; 
he unceasingly occupied himself to learn the springs 
ofphySM lization; but his hearty belief, his 

habits, the circle in which he lived, all brought him 
k to ,m i levated morality and to the love of re- 
ai. Thus, willing to honour the object of his 



TRENCH LITERATURE. 105 

studies and all that occupied and charmed his lei- 
sure, he sought for proofs to demonstrate that 
which other metaphysicians neglected or attacked. 

We shall nowhere find, so well as in his works, 
the impossibility of arriving, by this route, at the 
end to which they would attain. We must remark, 
likewise, that, having no doubts himself, safe in his 
own belief, he was the more at liberty, freely to in- 
vestigate a large proportion of physical nature ; and 
precisely because, not dreaming of an objection to 
the divine essence of the soul, his metaphysic 
seems the more to relate to materialism ; so much 
that, in one of his last works, he appeared to 
agree that all his researches applied themselves, 
not to the soul itself, but to a certain physical 
soul, formed of a delicate matter, subtile and 
mysterious, by the intermedial of which the soul, 
properly so called, communicates with the body. 
Himself, as we may suppose, had then perceived 
by which way his theory had failed. This supposi- 
tion, that we find so fanciful, the more so, as it seems 
also to explain the dogma of the corporeal resur- 
rection, was the result of a great sincerity, and of a 
sincere love of truth, which had no determined 
point to advance the design at which it aimed. 

In another work, the " Contemplation of Nature," 
he was entirely devoted to his religious opinions, 
and desired to give them the support of final causes : 
they are a proof of the sentiment, whereof he, 
doubtless, felt the nullity as a philosophical argu- 



106 a i oi 

■lent; but he had i wish to spread the impressions 
which gave birth in him to the study and examina- 
tion of nature. He tried also to accomplish the 
true wisdom, and to establish a sort of harmony 
between the occupations of his mind and the affec- 
tions of his soul. 

After having exhibited the system of metaphy- 
sics adopted towards the middle of the eighteenth 
century, and its effect upon divers branches of 
human knowledge, of which we trace at that time 
the sketch in the Encyclopaedia, let us return to 
the authors of that vast undertaking. 

D'Alembert, as we have said, merited consi- 
derable reputation by his mathematical labours. 
Living in another age, he would, without doubt, 
have been satisfied with that renown. The so- 
ciety in which he lived, the wish to obtain the 
most popular success, the desire to show himself 
universal, made him a scholar cold enough. When 
the wish to sparkle is the cause for which we 
write, we feel an equal inducement to attempt 
every thing. It is only genius that, writing from 
its own impulses, knows how to bear its own 
fruit. Voltaire, to show his versatility, essayed 
the accurate sciences. D'Alembert was too far 
from poetry to try its attainment, but he makes 
us see that his talent ill applied itself to literary 
matters. 

It was not thus with Diderot, who was endowed 
with an ardent and inordinate soul. But it was a 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 3 07 

fire without aliment ; and the talent of which he 
has given us some index did not receive any com- 
plete application. If he had embraced a uniform 
career — if his impatient spirit had marched in a 
determined direction, instead of wandering through 
all the chaotic variety of contrary opinions, which 
that era saw born or die, Diderot would have left 
a durable reputation ; and now, instead of repeat- 
ing only his name, we should have spoken of his 
works. But without a profound knowledge of any 
thing, without settled persuasion, without respect 
for any received idea, for any sentiment, he strayed 
into the vague, and made it sometimes sparkling, 
sometimes clear. 

A character such as his was quite lost, in adopt- 
ing the philosophy to which he applied himself. 
He tried to improve the theatre, and protested 
against established rules. He implored a more 
exact imitation of nature. He shewed, in effect, 
that it was susceptible of being known and de- 
scribed ; but, pretending to be the chief of a new 
dramatic school, and a dogmatical moralist, he fell 
into affectation, and into declamation the most 
high-flown. Thus, he was much more apart from 
nature than those against whom he had raised 
himself. He wrote on ethics, which finding ca- 
pable of warmth and elevation, he made a melange 
dark and incoherent, of an animated style, with a 
philosophy analytical and destructive. 

His romances present also the burlesque assem- 



108 A TAP.l.l U 0] 

one knows not what love of virtue, blended 

with the most shameful eyuisme, and a warmth 

sometimes true and profound, with terms eoarse and 

ble, On the whole, Diderot was a writer as fatal 

to literature as to morals. 

He became a model for those cold and empty 
minds who, learned in his school, " comme on 
pouvait se battre les flancs, pour se donner de la 
rave dans les mots," without having an interior 
centre of thought and feeling. 

The disciple most faithful to the philosophy of 
the times, was Helvetius. A useless persecution 
to his work a celebrity that it would not have 
had without that circumstance. He desired to 
unite, in one system, the principles he heard pro- 
fessed around him ; but his head was neither 
enough, nor strong enough, to accomplish such a 
project. 

It is probable that, in the society in which he 
moved, he might hear every day contradictory opi- 
nions carelessly ventured, without design or consis- 
tency, modified unceasingly by every circumstance, 
and by each impression of the moment. At the 
bottom, these were often in the same direction, but 
the assertions became much varied in their form. 
" L'Esprit" is a work composed of such conversa- 
tions — singular materials tor a philosophical work ! 
Jt app( are, also, that the friends of Helvetius did 
not design to build their own reputation by this 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 109 

production of their disciple — for it was attacked ; 
they defended it. 

Helvetius, conformably with the new ideas, estab- 
lished all his doctrine upon this basis — that phy- 
sical sensibility is the producing cause of all our 
thoughts. Of all the writers who embraced this 
opinion, none have presented it in so coarse a man- 
ner. When he would make the man depend upon 
his organization, then he must investigate that or- 
ganization. When he would ascertain what the 
feeling be, and that thought is nothing more than 
the last degree of sensation, then he must try to 
learn and expose the process of that sensation. M. 
Cabanis amended all that portion of the work of 
Helvetius, and dived into that which his prede- 
cessor had with difficulty suspected. He was too 
wise to find, in all the gross machinery of the phy- 
sical organization, the moral faculties that distin- 
guish the man ; he carried his researches further, 
and desired to learn the faculties in the more sub- 
tile springs, and so to speak, the most mysterious of 
the physical nature. His ability only serves to 
confirm us yet more how much the essence of the 
moral nature is foreign to the laws that may govern 
matter. However sanguine was his desire to unite 
the moral with the physical, he was not able to 
approach the end to which he tended ; and he was 
little enough of a philosopher to show himself in 
love with an opinion that he could not arrive at de- 
monstrating. When we would learn the man by 



1 10 A I 

the physical being, it is difficult for the moral do! 
to be reduced, to become the science of well-beii 
It is possible, thai a skilfully performed calculation 

of well-being conducts to virtue. The smallest 
d lense is sufficient to perceive that this route 
is neither the most noble nor the most certain. But 
to say the truth, Helvetius, who was a just man, 
upright and benevolent, was far from wishing to 
destroy virtue. On the contrary, he reckoned on 
establishing it upon a solid base, and imagined, 
that when he should demonstrate the self-love that 
renders us virtuous, he should perform a great ser- 
vice to morality. According to him, it imported 
little, whether one saved the life of a friend at the 
expense of one's own, from the love of self, or the 
love of one's friend. Helvetius did not deny that 
there exists in self a sudden and involuntary feel- 
ing that bears one to the action ; he did not deny, 
that the feeling being in the heart of almost all 
men, they will admire the action. Thus he changed 
nothing in the foundation of things, he only raised 
a quibble about words. He imposed upon himself 
the task of proving that the sacrifice of self and 
self-love may be the same thing, although they 
appear exclusive by their appellation. But, how- 
ever, we must admit, that in managing these terms, 
and in altering their natural signification, we may 
cause the most fatal results. 

There are many persons with whom words are 
every thing, whose sentiments repose upon that 



FRENCH LITERATURE. Ill 

single basis, that it is needful to guard it well from 
giving way. 

You tell them that man acts from self-love, and 
you agree that virtue is a succession of self-love. 
They will not comprehend that all your doctrine is 
supported upon that love of self, which, with all the 
world, is the preference of self to others, nor will it 
say more than that for you : for it is to that only 
that all the philosophy of Helvetius reduces itself. 
Ordinary minds, taking the term self-love in its 
ancient sense, will find that it ill accords with 
virtue, and so will become vicious. It seems to 
us that those who thus overthrew the dictionary, 
often forgatthe change that they had made. Epi- 
curus was one of the most rigid of philosophers, 
and his disciples were, at first, more austere than 
the Stoics. He said ' that the truest pleasure con- 
sisted in the practice of virtue/ A few years after, 
the swine of Epicurus, authorised by his name, 
forgat virtue in sensuality. The greater part of 
the philosophers, whom some persons affect to 
brand, were, like Helvetius, endowed with more 
than one virtue. They were disinterested, bene- 
volent ; they desired the good of their country 
and of humanity. They did not sacrifice their 
opinions for the vile appetite of gain. Many 
among them were insensible to the favour of 
kings, and preferred a life of independence. But 
they were accessible to all the seductions of va- 
nity ; their hearts were not closed against hatred 



113 A TABLEAU OF 

and jealousy. Contradiction irritated them, and 
the least restraint Beemed tyranny. When we 
make pride the basis of virtue, when we think to 
disengage ourselves from the laws that govern 
mankind, we do not follow a certain course. The 
passions may mislead us, unless we lose the good 
opinion of self, the primary source of our errors. 
Pride is not so contemptible a counsellor as per- 
sonal interest, but it readily carries us into faults. 
Hence the advantage of religion over human 
morals. 

Such was nearly the character and conduct of 
the literati of the epoch. The opinions that they 
developed may be blamed, but we must not be un- 
just towards them personally, if they lost them- 
selves in their works, their actions at least have 
nothing sufficiently condemnable to become a pre- 
text for those declamations, void of sense, that we 
often hear repeated against the philosophers of the 
eighteenth century. According to those severe 
accusers, the philosophy would be a sort of con- 
spiracy wickedly plotted, in order to destroy re- 
ligious and political laws. 

They have always spoken in that sense, some 
with insincerity, others without examination, re- 
peating that the philosophical sect had arrived at 
the die istrous point at which they had aimed. It is 
proper now to enquire to what extent all those 
tern i, doctrine, system, and even of phi- 

phy, are applicable to the circumstance. 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 113 



CHAPTER VII. 



Formerly, the name of philosopher appertained 
to those austere men who, smitten with a strong 
passion for truth, devoted their lives to its attain- 
ment. No cost was too great for them to arrive at 
that result. Their time was consumed in the ac- 
quisition of science ; they went to countries the 
most distant, through fatigue and peril, to consult 
the traditions of the ancient sages; they lived in 
the midst of a people, whose morals were severe, 
and were themselves remarkable for a character 
yet more severe ; their meditations were continual, 
and their little frequentation with the crowd pre- 
vented the evaporation of reflections only half formed. 
In their minds thus aggrandized by study, solitude, 
and labour of thought, were formed those vast sys- 
tems, conceived in the ensemble, and developed 
with eloquence. Such a philosophy could have no 
design to injure. The void that results from default 
of belief overwhelmed those serious and meditative 



114 A TABLEAU OF 

minds ; they experienced a lively desire to replace 
that which was wanting, by some edifice conformed 
to the order of their thoughts. Having an ab 

i before us, it is only indifferent to those who do 
not see it. 

The character and habits of ancient philosophers 
e them great authority among the people. They 
were in the midst of men as extraordinary beings, 
who, by the power of intellect, were elevated above 
all others. Numberless disciples pressed upon 
their steps, and, even as the master had conse- 
crated his life to the search of truth, so the dis- 
ciples devoted theirs to study, collect, and to 
spread the doctrines of their master. 

The necessity of teaching their opinions in a 
direct and positive manner contributed yet further 
to give the philosophers of antiquity a unity of 
principles binding together the tendency towards a 
tre well determined. Thus they formed a body 
doctrine, constructed with caution and method, 
textually exposed, to be judged, compared, 
nid discussed. They presented to the mind mate- 
rials for long reflection ; and, even in rejecting 
them, they left us to admire the strength and inge- 
nuity of the imagination that had created them. 
:monly, they are considered as brilliant dreams, 
trded, have more depth than is thought. 
which may appear fanciful becomes often 
1 difficulty, that we would gladly vanquish, 
though the casual observer has not noticed it. 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 115 

In modern times, philosophers have become per- 
sons of less consequence ; they occupy no rank 
among men, neither do they exercise any authority 
over them. That species of influence passed away 
in acquiring a force much more powerful, in the 
hands of those who were illustrious in the science 
of religion. Properly speaking, there was no longer 
the philosophical sect ; we only find more religious 
sects. The separation of the divine, from the hu- 
man, science considerably lowered philosophy. 

The Pagan worship could not satisfy the inquiries 
of the ancient sages. All sparkling as it was to their 
imagination, it had nothing which could penetrate 
to the bottom of the soul, or accord with the re- 
flections of a vast and profound mind. It was not 
sufficiently metaphysical. The loftier philosophy 
endeavoured to supply the void by an imperfect 
religion. Sometimes it was forced to lend itself to 
subtile interpretations ; sometimes it appeared im- 
pious, because it found itself obliged to reject, in 
part, a worship which did not accommodate itself 
to its abstractions. 

At length, when the Christian religion appeared 
upon the earth, it found Paganism giving way in all 
parts. It came to the aid of the poor, who no longer 
respected the discarded tenets, and whom worldly 
misfortunes rendered nevertheless eager for the 
consolations of religion ; it came, likewise, to suc- 
cour men wise and instructed, who, losing them- 
i2 



1 lh A TABLEAU OF 

selves in the clouds of philosophy, vainly sought in 
it the aliment necessary to their soul. 

Christianity inherits a great portion of the philo- 
sophy of antiquity ; and it is to that we must look 
for its last ennobling and deifying vestiges. 

After the revival of letters, when philosophy 
11 showed itself, it took a new direction. That 
religion which, in the eyes of the simple, offered 
only those appearances which were not above their 
capacity ; that lent itself to the habitual wants of 
life ; whose tenets and worship seized upon the 
imagination, the senses, the actions, — could also 
elevate itself to minds in love with general and 
abstract things. It showed itself positive, to satisfy 
the heart in the daily practice, and ideal, to those 
spirits pre-occupied by a sublime curiosity. Thus 
human philosophy saw itself reduced to inquire the 
principles of things, without essaying to unite them 
to the First and Universal Cause. All those funda- 
mental questions, into which we continually retomb 
in our investigation, passed into the domain of reli- 
gion. Philosophy occupied itself to guide the pro- 
gress of the sciences, to improve human reason, to 
learn the diverse faculties of man, and to direct the 
i inploy. 

As the movement which had developed mind was 
pwing, in a great measure, to the works of the an- 
ts; erudition became the ground-work of every 
kind of culture. The first duty of philosophers, as 
of all other writers, was to learn and compare to- 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 117 

gether all those who, in old times, had preceded 
them in the career. Thus study and the morals of 
the people, imposed upon them (as we have already 
remarked) a grave and retired life, and though it had 
nothing of the solemnity of that of the Grecian sages, 
yet it was equally preserved from distractions and 
contact with the crowd. France exhibits, less than 
any other European nation, the new character of 
philosophy. Montaigne differs completely. Des 
Cartes and his disciples followed a more elevated 
route. Their works were more analagous to the 
antique philosophy. 

But the eighteenth century offers in France, a 
tableau that resembles nothing that we had 
seen. They are no longer serious men, erudite, 
nourished by reflection and study, seeking a 
general point of view, proceeding with method, 
compelling themselves to form a system, all whose 
parts should be thoroughly co-ordained. They are 
writers, living in the midst of a frivolous society, 
animated by its spirit, organs of its opinions ; exer- 
cising and partaking of an enthusiasm that at once 
applied itself to things the most futile and to ob- 
jects the most serious; judging of all things with 
facility, conformably to rapid and momentary im- 
pressions ; little inquisitive upon questions which 
had been formerly debated ; disdaining the past 
and erudition ; inclined to a frivolous doubt, that 
had not the indecision of philosophy, but much 
rather a part taken to advance unbelief. At length 



118 I TABLEAU OF 

Dame of philosophy was never granted to the 
• merchandise. When we reproach the authors 
pock with having sustained a system and 
tractive principles, and calumniate them in 
respect, or the other, we give them a praise 
thai they did not merit. We might combat with 
indignation Hobbes or Spinosa. They had a 
direct design, a marked intention ; they presented 
themselves with weapons in their career ; they 
offered challenge ; we know that which we 
have to dispute : but the philosophy of the 
eighteenth century, since we must adopt the 
name, will never form a textual doctrine ; it will 
never be permitted to quote a writer, to prove that 
the philosophy had a certain project, and re- 
cognized principles. None of the literati agreed 
among themselves. They even had so little idea of 
any result whatever, that to take each one particu- 
larly, there is not one who does not contradict 
himself perpetually. Their vanity, their love of 
success prevented them, yet more than the character 
of their studies, from forming a sect. None felt 
either respect or deference for another ; none would 
avow to himself his inferiority. That zeal for truth, 
that enthusiasm for genius, all the disinterested 
ments that make sects and parties, were not 
found in those times. What a difference between 
Voltaire, trafficking for praise with all the other 
writers of the age, and a venerable philosopher, 
surrounded by disciples eager for his words and 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 119 

admirers of his virtues, reigning over them by the 
power of his discourse and example ! 

The philosophy of the eighteenth century is 
then a spirit universal in the nation, evidenced 
by its writings. It is a written testimony of the 
tendency of contemporary opinions. There was, 
in the whole period, a necessary liaison between 
literature and the state of society. Sometimes 
the affinity demands the inquiry to be made with 
wisdom, and carefully developed, to be rendered 
sensible and evident ; but in this case it was so 
direct and immediate, that it does not require a 
subtile observation to unfold it. Writings not only 
received influence from the public ; they were, to 
say the truth, written under its dictation. We even 
find men, whose talents seem to announce an illus- 
trious career, dissipate their lives and faculties, to 
obtain every day the seducing success of conversa- 
tion ; and yielding to that employment the vivacity 
of a fine imagination, leaving no result after them ; 
so absolute was the domination of society over let- 
ters. The character likewise, of that philosophy 
showed itself less in the opinions, than in the man- 
ner in which they were professed. Conformable to 
this idea, we have been more anxious to inquire the 
general spirit of the writers, than to enter upon the 
detail of their works. Nevertheless, while we de- 
monstrate that authors, far from directing the 
movement of morals, or the tone of society, on the 



contrary, rather obeyed it, yet we would not entirely 
- them. 
That an ordinary person, whose employment is 
neither to reflect nor to observe, should leave to in- 
ce, or hazard, those opinions and judg- 
ments, that he yields to every fugitive impression, 
misfortune, no doubt; it would have been 
ter had a reserved spirit governed him, even 
though it lost a portion of its grace and faci- 
lity ; for, in fine, there is a general course of 
ideas, by which the crowd are hurried, without 
power to resist, or even to perceive. But the more 
difficult duties are prescribed to him who has re- 
ed from nature the noble gift of talent, and who 
seeks the honour of imposing upon his fellow-crea- 
tures his own thoughts. No longer abandoned to 
caprices, he should maturely and conscientiously 
examine his opinions before spreading them, and 
attach less importance to the frivolous success of 
the world. Study and meditation should preserve 
him from the contagious vices of his times, and 
instead of flattering, he should combat them. He is 
accountable to his talent, as the magistrate of its 
authority. 

The simple citizen, on whom no one depends, 

se example is not contagious, whose words are 

little heard, freely gratifies his tastes and inclina- 

-. — whilst the magistrate is a slave to the 

power confided to him, to live in a manner grave 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 121 

and rigid, in thinking that he has a responsibility 
beyond himself. 

The better to ascertain how far the character of 
the literati was independent of the diverse shades 
of opinions, and allied rather to the universal order 
of things, we may quote Duclos ; who took no part 
in the common cause with those of whom we have 
spoken, and who, more than once, affected distance 
from their principles. * 

Do we not find in him a spirit of vanity and 
independence ; the disdain for power and riches ; 
that alliance of cynisme and morality; the pre- 
tence of bearing philosophy in the least things, and 
in considering stories of fairies and romances no 
longer as a simple amusement, but as vehicles of 
knowledge and reason ? Is not all this in him 
common with those whom he disapproved ? Is it 
not all in perfect assortment with the period in 
which he is found ? We might make the same re- 
marks upon those men who have shown themselves 
yet more opposed to the philosophical side. 

Considered as a writer, Duclos is much nearer to 
his contemporaries. His talent bears the stamp of 
coldness, examination, and even of dryness. In 
his histories, and in his M Voyage en Italie," the 
character is a defect ; but the " Considerations sur 
les Moeurs," being a work entirely conceived in 
that spirit, is complete in its plan ; it is not a work 
of profound and general morality ; it probes not 
for a reply to the heart of man ; but it is not very 



122 I FABLIAU OF 

. better to learn, or bettor to paint, all 
1 tmt- of the spirit of society, or better to 
characterize causes and their immediate effects. It 
tual tableau of the superficial covering, in 

which the habits of the world clothe mankind. 
Above all, a remarkable precision and clearness 
pervades it. We always comprehend the thoughts 
of the author, — rarely can we contest his truth. 
This advantage results from the talent of definition. 
Duclos begins by establishing the signification of the 
words he employs, or at least that which he wishes 
them to signify. Thus he makes us always under- 
stand the limits that he had imposed upon his 
thoughts. We evidently see how far his reasoning 
extends, and are not tempted to deny the result. 
Discussions come ordinarily from our not attaching 
the same sense to the same words : when he has 
made us comprehend his meaning, it meets witli 
few opposers. He only concerns himself, to trans- 
port others to the point at which he is placed to 
investigate things ; then they partake, or at least 
acknowledge the same impressions. 

The Abbe de Mably, like Duclos, had not only 
a reserve towards the chiefs of the new school of 
philosophy ; he shewed even a repugnance towards 
them ; he set no value either upon their opinions 
or their systems. However, he resembles them 
more than he thought ; taking, in appearance, ano- 
ther road, he arrived with all his forces at the same 
point. 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 123 

He was, all his life, occupied with more ardour 
and gravity than other writers upon politics and 
morals ; in so far as they had reference to public 
order. Far from eulogizing, as they did, the march 
of intellect, and priding himself in the existing 
times, he constantly shewed disdain for the morals 
of the age, and for the character of men and na- 
tions ; indignant at the disorder and frivolity reign- 
ing around him, his esteem carried him back to 
the souvenirs of antiquity. The Abbe de Mably 
rendered no justice to any thing appertaining to 
modern times ; neither religion, government, nor dis- 
tinction, neither the annals of France nor European 
nations appeared to him to merit a regard. He 
only cared to bear himself to remote times, in 
which all things had some impress of respect and 
affection. 

It seemed that his aversion from the actual order 
could not pardon even the first origin whence that 
order was derived. His works were much less a 
praise on the past, than an attack upon the pre- 
sent ; he was inspired with less veneration for the 
ancient, than contempt for modern institutions. 

A morose and hostile tone could not give birth 
to admiration. Besides, that which is an exclusive 
boast, having no affinity nor relationship with us, 
could only inspire feelings of coldness and separa- 
tion. The Abbe de Mably then followed, as well 
as other writers, a destructive method, and contri- 
buted, without knowing it, to weaken the bonds, 



1'24 A TAB! v.w OF 

already impaired, thai yet united the members ot 

an old society. This character is more than all 
shewn in the " Observations sur l'llistoire de 
France :" the Abbe refused to enter into the spirit 
of our ancient morals and our forms of govern- 
ment . it was not assuredly from lack of research 
and reflection, it was rather the effect of a blind 
prepossession ; but in fine, the author seemed not 
to comprehend the history of his country. 

He was one of the first who elevated the voice 
to declaim against the sovereigns of France ; he 
accustomed our ears to hear taxed with barba- 
rity, despotism or anarchy, the necessary insti- 
tutions of their times, and which, modifying suc- 
cessively, have given to France, through the 
duration of ages, sometimes happiness, sometimes 
glory. He cared not to see all that the national 
character presents of the noble and honourable 
during its early times ; and because the companions 
of St. Louis had for their descendants the courtiers 
of Louis XV., he was not able to find the admi- 
rable but in Greece or Rome. 

That which we have said of the effect, the know- 
ledge and imitation of the works of antiquity 
produced in letters, in the sixteenth century, ap- 
plies equally to politics and history. The morals 
and government of Rome and Greece became as 
classical as their poetry. The Roman law, and 
all the maxims of absolute power, had taken, by 
degrees, the place of the public right of the free 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 125 

nations of Germanic origin. Infancy learned to 
stammer the names of Cato and Epaminondas, long 
before it could utter those of Dugesclin and Bayard. 
Every one was at liberty to find the Trojan war 
great and poetical ; but to admire the Crusades 
had been a thing unheard of. The verses of Virgil 
were engraven on the memory, but taste prohibited 
the solacing of oneself with the tinsel of Tasso. 

In this manner, we find ourselves insulated by 
degrees from the history of the country — its tradi- 
tions were disdained and broken. Our magistrates 
alone, by their duties and occupations, were bound 
to the science, and continued to dive into its 
spirit. Some scholars directed their researches 
on that side ; but the classical studies, and the 
opinions of society, had no reference whatever to 
that kind of labour. Afterwards, when we wished 
to occupy ourselves with matters of politics, we 
no longer found a certain base, and it was neces- 
sary to propose doctrines, instead of following the 
guidance of habits and experience. 

Some authors thought, with reason and pru- 
dence, that it was expedient to consult authorities 
in the records of the nation, in order, as much as 
it was possible from the past times, to learn the 
rights it had had, and the duties it had fulfilled. 
But the vestiges of all those things were much ef- 
faced, and, at last, none but the real and positive 
elements could serve us for a recomposition. 

It was in this sense that Fenelon, greatly as he 



A TABLEAU OF 

admired antiquity, always spake of Frencli politico. 
Montesquieu followed expressly the same opinion. 

We have laid that Daniel sought in history the 
proofs of his doctrines; and about the same epoch, 
Boulainvillii rs was entirely consecrated to inquire 
into the spirit and detail of our institutions, 
author bore more knowledge and science into 
the investigation, nor more enlightened the much 
neglected study of our ancient and national public 
privileges. 

The Abbe Dubos adopted a system opposed to 
that of Boulainvilliers, but with less zeal and eru- 
dition. 

But circumstances were little favourable to mul- 
tiply such enquiries and studies ; they were not 
in accordance with the habitual ideas of society. 
The form of government also rendered the science 
idle and inapplicable. 

After long distractions, when order was re- 
established in France, nothing had been regulated ; 
all was uncertain, although all was in repose. 
Mo class of citizens, no authority knew equity, 
either in its prerogatives or its obligations ; no 
habit could form itself, because nothing was as- 
sured or fixed. In that incertitude, the greater 
part of those engaged in politics were bound to 
reason in a general manner, to enquire the primor- 
dial principles of every species of society ; and 
found it more simple, in destroying the remains of 
the old foundation, to construct an entirely new 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 127 

edifice : thus some lost themselves in a vain and 
abstract policy ; others, such as Mably, instructed 
in ancient history, had a tendency to introduce 
those forms which, being foreign to us, were as 
much removed from reality as the systems of the 
first. We again find, it seems, this double school 
of politics in the spirit which was shewn at the 
commencement of the Revolution, when entering 
upon the discussion of the materials of govern- 
ment. 

But if the Abbe de Mably exercised a grievous 
influence over the untaught, it was most assuredly 
against his will : he never desired that European 
constitutions should be modelled by the ancient 
republics. He repeated continually that the change 
was neither possible nor rational. He thought 
nations were not worthy of the trial. No writer 
could better foresee the result of a movement of 
the people ; he partook not of the trifling hopes 
of the philosophers of his times, who saw nothing 
in the coming future but liberty, happiness, know- 
ledge and perfection. Enlightened by the profound 
contempt he had for his contemporaries, he could 
predict a great part of our misfortunes. 

Much above those of whom we have spoken, 
and without marching under any of their banners, 
we find Rousseau. If, among the illustrious writers 
of the age, there be one who had a particular in- 
fluence, yet, without making himself subservient 
to follow the common movement, it was, without 



128 a TABLEAl 01 

doubt, Rousseau who obtained that honour. Formed 
by misfortunes and in solitude, nourished by me* 
ditation and secret chagrins, he was, as it would 
seem, of all his literary contemporaries, the one 
who bore the most distinct and native character. 
Whilst others received all the influence of so- 
ciety , participating of the morals and opinions dis- 
seminated through the public, endeavouring to 
please it, and conforming themselves to its spirit ; 
Rousseau felt all those effects in another manner. 

Their action exercised upon him a sort of weight 
that oppressed without enslaving him. His talent, 
in the midst of all those circumstances, contracted 
somewhat more of individuality, and, consequently, 
became more profound and persuasive ; his fame 
likewise was greater and more flattering. Others 
arrived at approbation ; Rousseau excited enthu- 
siasm ; and that which is at once flattering, both 
to the writer and his admirers, is, that such suc- 
cess was, in a great measure, owing to his nobler 
opinions, and to a language replete with more 
force, enthusiasm and emotion. Philosophy, in 
the mouth of Rousseau, found again those wea- 
pons, of which it was at that time destitute, — elo- 
quence and feeling. 

But we must allow that his philosophy inclosed a 
thousand dangerous germs. Perhaps it was more 
prejudicial than that of other writers. Without 
family, without friends, without country ; wan- 
dering from place to place, from condition to con- 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 129 

dition; oppressed every where by a world in 
which he possessed nothing, Rousseau conceived 
a spirit of revolt, and an interior pride, that raised 
him almost to delirium. The vanity of other au- 
thors was all exterior; that of Rousseau, which, 
for a long time, received no enjoyment from with- 
out, took refuge in the deepest recesses of his soul, 
there to embitter all his happiness, at the same time 
that it afforded him no relief. Nothing could gratify 
him ; — without good will towards mankind, no 
kindness could soften him ; he was of those spirits, 
whose pride is really insatiable ; who, in their ex- 
tremity, are filled with indignation at being men, 
imagining that nature owes them more than the rest 
of the world. 

Every thing done by society wounds such cha- 
racters ; they cannot learn submission, not even to 
the force of things. Necessity not only afflicts, 
but mortifies them. 

It was in such a disposition that Rousseau drew 
out his talent, his opinions, and his faults ; it was 
from having lived estranged in the midst of society, 
we might even say of humanity, and feeling with 
enthusiasm a love of virtue and justice, and willing 
to excite the same in others, that he shook that 
which serves as the basis of virtue and justice — 
the sentiment of duty. Hence arose, as it appears 
to us, the vice of his philosophy. Insulated among 
men, he had never felt duty as a bond ; he had 
always found that his own impulse carried him 



! 30 A TABLEAU OF 

ml the position assigned to him; lie never could 

unfortunate being that lie was, that duty, far 
from being a barrier to the feelings of the man, is, 
on the contrary, their application well directed. 

It is in this ease, as in all the prerogatives with 
which man is endowed by nature. In order to 
live in society, he must sacrifice a portion, that he 
may tranquilly enjoy that other portion of which 
he is assured. He has a right to the possession 
of the whole earth ; but every one is at liberty 
to contest the exercise of that right ; then it must 
be resigned for the smaller part, where no one 
may deprive him. His affections, in like manner, 
might embrace all the objects in nature, could 
thing fix or secure them. Society, in be- 
stowing on a man the bonds of family and 
country, of morals and laws, has restrained his 
affections; but it has likewise protected them, 
and so disposed all around them, to the end 
that they may have an open course. Held by 
the just and the honest, they injure no one, and 
none may attack them. By a necessary vicissi- 
tude, on the contrary, if those feelings carry the 
man beyond the limits society has prescribed, 
lety will be avenged, and the more cruelly in 
proportion as it is better regulated. It unceasingly 
harasses those who infringe the general order, and 
makes them feel, in a thousand ways, that they 
have broken the established equilibrium. Then 
comes the outcry against the duties imposed by so- 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 131 

ciety ; they are accused of stifling the feelings of 
nature, not perceiving that duties are nothing more 
than those feelings permitted and consecrated. 

With Rousseau, the accomplishment of duty 
had never been the source of any enjoyment ; he 
had not been able to find in it the employment of 
an ardent and sensitive mind. He was always met 
with in a false position, where his feelings were out 
of place; thus he imputed his misfortunes to human 
institutions. In the inner sanctuary, they doubt- 
less accused him of his faults ; and he cherished 
by those means, a sentiment of bitterness and hos- 
tility against that society, in which his character 
and circumstances had prevented him from taking 
a suitable place. Then he would make man's 
progress to virtue, not by attention to duties, but 
by a free and passionate transition, followed by 
pride and independence. Such a route has no 
secure ground, and can only deceive us. Rous- 
seau gave us his life as an example ; it was filled 
with errors and defects ; yet none professed virtue 
with more warmth and enthusiasm than he. When 
we do not subnet our conduct to the prescribed 
rules, it is in vain that the imagination be in- 
flamed by zeal for all that is noble and honest ; 
we are no longer virtuous. It is a trait peculiar 
to civilized times, that those characters who in- 
sulate themselves from real circumstances and 
nourish illusions, live with sentiments the most 
sublime. The mind is exalted ; it feels, with a 
k 2 



A TABLEAU OF 

relloufe vivacity the passion for excellence : 
the imagination sees nothing but purity ; knows 
nothing of evil ; but, having disdained the trodden 
paths, not regarding duty as sacred, men wander 
from error to error without even perceiving it. 
Experiencing within themselves, in their utmost 
force, the most virtuous motives, they cannot 
think them culpable. Sentiments appear to them to 
have more reality than actions. Rousseau, in the 
height of his impurity, believed himself to be the 
most virtuous of men ; he was willing to appear 
before the tribunal of God with his works in his 
hand, and thought their pages would be found to 
contain that which would redeem all his faults. 
This disposition sensibly influences the nature of 
the talent. The man whose life is in accordance 
with his sentiments, expresses them simply and 
without effort ; there is in his words as much ele- 
vation as there can be, somewhat of the assured 
and positive, that penetrates and carries us with 
them. But he, whose virtue exists only in an 
overheated imagination, intoxicates himself in his 
notions, and attaches himself to them so much the 
more as they are his only good ; they are not 
i ting in truth ; they have much of the sincerity 
of the feelings he expresses ; it is his very soul 
dling its emotion to ours. It persuades us, 
oves us; we have a conference, but no ac- 
count is rendered : what contradiction ! We can- 
not repose in full confidence on his statements ; 



FRENCH LITERATURE- 133 

they are true, but they are not plain. The highest 
character of genius, whose charm is eternal, is 
wanting. By this rule; Rousseau was far behind 
the eloquence of Bossuet. 

Such was the general colour of all the works 
of Rousseau ; but it is necessary to shew how it 
applied itself to each of them particularly. 



134 A TABLEAU OF 



CHAPTER VIII. 



The romance, that formerly was no more than a 
naive recital of facts, and which, in the reign of 
Louis XIV. had begun to be joined to a detailed 
picture of the feelings, took under the pen of 
Rousseau an entirely new character. The facts 
became the least part of the sketch ; it was to trace 
the movements of the soul that he was particularly 
destined ; not only the simple movements immedi- 
ately produced by the effect of circumstances, 
whereof character is composed, and whence results 
the conduct, but the inward action of the soul 
upon itself, when, upon the wings of the imagina- 
tion and the passions, it takes its flight far above 
real and positive things. Rousseau placed his per- 
sonages upon that ideal scene, the only one in which 
lie was pleased to live himself; and thus brought 
the romance nearer to the character of the highest 
dramatic poetry. We must not then seek in the 
new Heloise for the picture of mankind, such as 
they appear before us. It is not thus Rousseau 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 135 

desired to represent them. How rarely, to the 
eyes of others, does the man dare to reveal the 
mysteries of his soul ; at least that passionate and 
involuntary impulse which hurries him away. 
It is a je ne sais quelle sort of modesty, united to 
the fear of incapability, that generally throws a 
veil over the secret movements, and deadens the 
impressions. 

Within the man pass a thousand agitations, a 
thousand conflicts, that have no apparent result, 
and to which no words can bear witness. It is this 
portion of our interior being that Rousseau has re- 
presented : the letters of Julie do not inclose that 
which is said, but that which is felt, without being 
spoken. 

This manner of considering and describing the 
human heart was the source of the admirable beau- 
ties of the work ; and likewise hurried him into 
some faults ; the greatest, doubtless, is that uni- 
formity of an even style, always destined to paint 
exalted impressions, and to touch them in detail. 
Nothing reposes ; simple language never comes to 
replace the reader in a natural position. 

Richardson, though less eloquent than Rousseau, 
perhaps better understood romance ; he mixed ele- 
vated sentiments with real circumstances, in so 
far as they appear in life, where the spirit does not 
entirely unveil itself, but when impelled by some 
extraordinary circumstance. That process is more 
conformable to nature ; it is also more moral, since 



\ TABLEAU OF 

n represents virtue, not upon a stage elevated 

e common life, but upon a level with the soil 

on which we live, and susceptible of a daily and 

habitual application. 

Let us remark, likewise, that in order to give 
woman a deep and impassioned language, a know- 

,e of the impressions she experiences, the ap- 
preciation of their force, and inquietude as to their 
result, one must subtract from her the charms of 
modesty, ignorance of self, involuntary abandon- 
ment, and by that deprive her of half the graces of 
her sex. 

Another defect in the work is the mad pretence 
of being a course of morality. Besides the general 
design Rousseau gave to his romance, he would 
not lose an opportunity of dogmatising. There are 
few circumstances in life that do not find some 
pattern in the Helo'ise; and without examining 
within himself the system of morality, one easily 
perceives that the mania of philosophising often 
made the romancer a little pedantic. 

Rousseau himself noticed the defect ; it had been 
better had it altogether disappeared. 

We cannot bring the same reproach against his 
Bmile, which is a work essentially dogmatical, and 

which we must speak in a single point of view. 
It was quite plain, that Rousseau, occupying him- 
self upon education, wished to bring up a child 
not for society, but against it. He set out from 
that point, and, consequently, composed a work 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 137 

which was inapplicable, if not injurious. In effect, 
when we have formed a being, in a manner to con- 
stitute an hostility with his fellow-creatures, and 
afterwards place him in the midst of them, his feel- 
ings will be in revolt against every thing that 
should serve to regulate him. We have taught him 
to follow only those self-formed rules ; whilst no- 
thing; will contribute towards his maintenance in 
them ; they are imaginary, well as we may have 
prescribed them. His interest, his pride, his inde- 
pendent habits, will cause him to transgress; unless 
the general example recal him, he will be culpable 
and unhappy ; at the same time he will meet with 
neither pity nor good-will, but find himself con- 
formed to the philosophy that has given him such 
an education. 

There is yet another fault : it is that of placing a 
child in factitious circumstances, so arranged for 
him as to produce a calculated effect. That me- 
thod of playing comedy with children, to teach 
them how to conduct themselves in a life which is 
all reality, was adopted by numberless tutors which 
the end of the century produced. 

Each would deceive his pupil ; disguise to him 
that which appeared to his view; direct his will, 
instead of obtaining his obedience ; conduct him to 
virtue by paths covered with flowers, and to science 
by amusement. We endeavoured to sweeten with 
honey the brim of the cup, instead of teaching the 
child that though the drink were bitter, yet it must 



138 A TABLEAU OF 

be swallowed. W« must not have for the infant a 
OOtnpl&cency that nature lias not for the man. We 
must speak to liim frankly; besides, he will not be 
so easily deceived as may be thought; and, when 
once he has detected the fraud, all is then lost. 

Another consideration arises against all those 
systems of instruction : they are not applicable to 
public education ; consequently, they are useless. 
We could maintain, with great probability, that 
public education is essentially the best ; but it is 
clear, at least, that it is necessary for the greater 
number ; for a whole generation cannot be occu- 
pied to bring up the rising one, for that in its turn 
to charge itself with the instruction of another ; it 
would be a ceaseless cultivation, and compiling for 
ever. 

In thus placing education in arranged scenes, 
Rousseau often shewed how little he had observed 
the early age. He fell into the grossest errors 
upon the progressive formation of the ideas and 
feelings of childhood. But was it not natural that 
such a father as Rousseau should misunderstand 
infancy ? In truth, he must have been very com- 
pletely ignorant of the first notions of practical 
knowledge to desire that the child should re-fashion, 
for himself personally, the work of civilization, and 
invent that which he ought to learn, from the 
sciences even to the attainment of virtue. 

One point that has not been sufficiently re- 
marked, is, that Rousseau, in the Emile, founded 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 139 

all his moral upon the consideration of personal 
interest, even in a more especial manner, perhaps, 
than Helvetius. It was to be expected, on the 
part of a man who had always been deficient in 
good will towards his species ; but it is singular 
that to accomplish that object, having employed 
the metaphysic of the eighteenth century, he used, 
in the celebrated confession of faith, the noblest 
eloquence of the Cartesian philosophy, which, in 
effect, would directly conduct to religious creeds. 
One is likewise surprised to find him, at first, 
ascend by a sublime flight, almost to the know- 
ledge of God ; and then depart from it to reject 
practical religion and forms of worship. But such 
a procedure is in conformity with all the phi- 
losophy of Rousseau. The idea of a Supreme 
Being, a vague feeling of gratitude and respect, 
and, in a word, all that is called natural religion, 
is entirely in the region of the imagination. One 
may be unceasingly agitated by those noble 
thoughts, while the action remains unchanged ; 
but worship is a positive application of the feel- 
ings ; by that intermedial they become useful ; by 
that only they take a form, acquire reality, and 
assume an influence over the conduct. 

In examining Rousseau, we find an analogy 
between a religion without worship, and a morality 
without practice. Of all the works of Rousseau, 
those that have exercised the greatest empire over 
opinion, are, perhaps, his political writings. 



140 l TABLEAU 01 

His literary career began by an attack upon 

civilization. Whether, as it has been pretended, 
that it was at tirst a jeu d'esprit, to sustain those 
opinions that he afterwards embraced with ardour, 
or that his talent had not acquired all its force, his 
tirst essay was only an ingenious declamation, 
whereof the thoughts, although expressed with a 
degree of warmth, had nothing of depth in them. 

In the discourse upon inequality, he attempted 
the history of society, sought how and wherefore 
men were united together, and the result that was 
owing to it. As he w r as an enemy to the actual 
order of things, he spake with animated bitterness 
against the fruits of human associations. Pro- 
perty, distinction of rank, mutual duties, the obli- 
gation to manual labour, and even to the labour of 
mind — all were subject to his attacks; and, even 
remounting, to ascertain the time when man had 
not had such misfortunes to fear, he travelled over all 
the degrees of civilization, he found again unceas- 
ingly the principles which impose upon the human 
species the inclination and the necessity to live in 
society. There w r as little wanting in his vexation 
to make him suppose that man was only to live in 
the state of a brute. Nevertheless, he dare not 
risk that absurd opinion, nor make man a perfect 
animal. Thus, his discourse had no result; it led 
to nothing ; it was the effusion of a philosophy 
hating society, of which it could not deny its ne- 
cessity ; but it had, in that sense, an evil tendency, 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 141 

for it was suited to give birth to a feeling of attack 
and aversion against social order, whatever that 
order might be. 

He sought the principles of government and 
laws in the nature of man ; and society in the social 
contract. Montesquieu said, " I never heard 
a discussion upon public right, that it did not 
begin carefully to enquire into the origin of soci- 
eties ; which seems to me ridiculous. If men did 
not form them ; if they quitted or fled from each 
other ; it would be necessary to demand the reason, 
and to inquire why they held themselves apart; 
but they all grow in union the one with the other. 
A child is born after his father, and is bound 
to him ; there is society, and the cause of so- 
ciety." 

Rousseau, leaving those considerations, would 
show the moral principles by which men were 
united ; the design proposed by their union ; and 
the best means of arriving at that design, indepen- 
dently of particular cases. 

Departing from the principle that society sub- 
sists by a general accord of its members, he in- 
quired on what conditions men were obliged to 
exceed the contract, and the means that would 
make them observe it. The work, as Montesquieu 
thought, is evidently idle and useless. It is clear 
that society exists by consent of its members. That 
consent or contract is, in effect, the rational prin- 
ciple of its existence ; but the contract is tacit ; it 



149 i Li of 

boon, consequently, it has nothing 
tic al. It is thus in geometry we say, that a 
solul is engendered l>y the motion of a piano. The 
definition is true ; it exactly represents the idea of 
egular solid; but it has no affinity with the 
material condition in the existence of the solid. It 
is a distinctive character, to suppose that it exists, 
hut it is not the principle which makes it exist. 
The same if there be society : it is by abstraction 
resulting from the consent of all its members ; in 
reality it proceeds from that which many men have 
reached in a certain country, where they have been 
established, had children, property, a government, 
common habits ; if we would exert ourselves to 
them a good policy, we must separate all 
those positive circumstances. A geometrician will 
never attempt to create a solid by the movement 
of a plane. He knows very well the nature of that 
kind of truth ; but we may inspire men with an 
idea of the possibilty of concluding and renewing 
the social contract, and by that notion empires are 
overthrown. 

Rousseau was drawn into notable errors in thus 
to give such abstractions a positive ap- 
pearance. 

After having supposed the possibility of tlie con- 
tract ; after having shown men connected together 
in order to pass it, he saw no inconvenience for 
each one to abdicate, by the covenant, all his indi- 
vidual rights, for the benefit of society : free to 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 143 

destroy it the moment it should be found no longer 
suitable. Thence issues the principle of the sove- 
reignty of the people. 

Rousseau did not discover that, in this way, he 
gave tyranny the most powerful weapon. In effect 
the government that exercises that authority, is not 
an abstract being, which, by its essence, should be 
the representative of society, and, in that sense, can 
do nothing that is not for its good ; but, in reality, 
it is a man, or many men, animated by personal 
interests, agitated by passions and liable to errors ; 
who, being invested with sovereign power, use it to 
break the contract. The will of the greater num- 
ber is often insufficient to prevent this ; the sove- 
reign, armed with the forces confided to him, may 
keep it a long time idle and almost mute ; so the 
doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, leads us 
to take no precautions against power, and by that 
means is injurious to liberty. 

If it were needful to renounce the establishment 
of ideas of policy upon the rights and wants that 
positive laws and habits have given to the people, 
and seek for an abstract basis, the system of Hobbes 
would even be preferable to that of Rousseau. If 
governments have no other right than that of force ; 
defence, and even attack, are legitimate. Each 
would essay to be the strongest ; and to learn if 
repose were dearer than interest. From this spirit 
diverse situations may result. The sovereign boldly 
abuses his power without fearing that he may be 



144 A TABLEAl or 

deprived of it in defending himself. This is des- 
5m. Citizens may sacrifice their tranquillity in 

(lie defence or aggrandisement of their privileges. 
Hence disorder and revolution. At length, the 
reign may be arrested in his enterprises from 
tin tear of wounding too sensibly, or stirring up 
the people to their personal interests ; and the 
citizens may, likewise, in opposition to government, 
make a similar calculation. This armistice be- 
tween two parties who find it their advantage to 
remain in presence, without warfare, constitutes 
those states at once free and happy. Commonly, 
they fluctuate between that perfection and com- 
plete disorder. 

This is very nearly the spirit of ancient Euro- 
pean governments, which is yet preserved in Eng- 
land. Between the mass of the people and their 
monarch, we find a body of citizens who have 
more privileges to defend and more means of re- 
sistance ; it is with them only, that sovereignty 
has to debate its interests. They are, as ad- 
vanced guards, destined to protect public liberty ; 
by degrees, in our own country, royal authority, 
either by force or address, gained a victory over 
that advanced guard of the nation. That victory 
was the cause of its ruin. It found itself after- 
wards, in the hands of the main body of the army, 
and suffering a total defeat. Of the rest, Rousseau 
erred only by an inclination natural enough, of 
giving to his system an appearance of clearness 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 145 

and certainty, and a form similar to that of the 
exact sciences, which, at the time, had become the 
model of all the sciences. The faults of his method 
are most shown in their application. We have to 
notice this in his work on Poland, in which, far 
from falling into abstractions, he sought every 
means of establishing a good government, en- 
grafted upon the character of the people, upon 
their ancient laws, and in a word, upon all real cir- 
cumstances, that, in truth, he knew ill enough. 
Besides, he could never have desired to attempt a 
trial of his own maxims. Like Mably, he had too 
great a contempt for European societies, to expect 
any good from their operations. 

We shall speak less of the other works of Rous- 
seau ; we recognize in them all that we have said 
on his character, his morals, his religion, and his 
politics. His controversial writings (except that 
" Sur les Spectacles," which is his best work,) fur- 
ther show, an irritable vanity, which, in its anger, 
knew neither method nor discretion. In spite of 
their philosophical pretensions, the authors of the 
eighteenth century leave us to observe, generally, 
a very exalted vanity in their literary quarrels. 
Their polemics had not so much of sang-froid and 
dignity, as the ridiculous debate of pedants. Some 
of them shewed the most bitter gall, others blended 
the grossest injuries. Montesquieu alone main- 
tained, with a noble dignity, his elevated character. 

We shall make a few observations on the " Con- 



146 A TABLEAU OF 

-inns." it is s assuredly, a very singular phe- 
nomenon that a man should undertake to achieve 
the esteem, and even admiration of posterity, by 
making known the smallest details of a life, pre- 
senting neither grandeur nor elevated action ; but 
which, on the contrary, was filled with ignoble 
minutlSB and unpardonable faults. But there is 
something yet more surprising ; it is, the success of 
such an enterprise ; in having induced a persua- 
sion that he was virtuous, by recounting that he 
was not so. Herein is a proof, how powerful 
over the heart of man is the picture of a vivid 
and real impression ; of the sympathy it excites, 
and how established between author and reader, 
is that intimate relation by which- the one 
feels as quickly as the other describes. It has 
been truly said, that no one knew better than 
Rousseau how to reveal his inmost soul. Who lias 
not felt charmed and moved in reading the ani- 
mated picture of his vague reveries ; of his hopes 
continually blighted and continually revived ; of 
the enjoyments of his imagination ; of his romances 
of virtue and happiness, always balked, and as 
often renewed; of those storms which come from 
the utmost depths of the heart ; in fine, all the 
history of a being recluse and thoughtful ? After 
we are thus placed by the magic of truth, in 
each of these situations, Rousseau makes us par- 
of his thoughts, and, so to speak, of his 
actions. We fall by an irresistible proneness into 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 147 

his errors; we take part with his foolish pride; 
we see nothing but outrage and injustice ; we be- 
come the enemies of all mankind ; and we prefer 
him to them. But, on better reflection, we dis- 
cover that the man who has so enchanted us, led a 
uniformly egotistical life ; that in every point he 
brought us back to himself; that the enjoyments 
he courted had always something solitary and 
undivided ; that he only sacrificed his interest to 
his pride ; that he was envious of that he could 
not obtain, although he had often renounced its 
pursuit ; that his affections even had a selfish cha- 
racter ; that he loved for his own gratification, and 
not for that of others. At length it repents us to be 
thus slandered in not believing ourselves better 
than such a man : we thoroughly comprehend all 
his faults, but no longer pardon them, nor confound 
explanations with excuses. 

It remains yet to speak of one of those men of 
the first order, who formed the lustre of the age. 
With Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau, we 
must associate Buffon ; four writers who left far 
behind them all their contemporaries. 

The spectacle of nature may affect the mind in 
two very different ways. It presents itself as a 
source of varied impressions, influencing the soul, 
addressing the imagination, and exciting the senti- 
ment. Such is the tableau of the universe, in its di- 
rect affinity with man. It was thus, that in the first 
ages of the world, men were struck, when they were 
l 2 



148 



A TA1 



simple and childlike; neither seeking to compare 

nor to explain ; every object, stamping a new and 
insulated impression, consequently much stronger 
and more lively ; the world appearing to them 
an accumulation of wonders terrible or imposing ; 
their imagination only being smitten, they would 
see nothing but picturesque and poetical aspects. 
In time, they would discover conformity and differ- 
ences, they would class and divide objects, they 
would find analogies in the effects, from them 
ascend to causes. Nature would no longer be 
only the principle of individual sensations ; it would 
become subject of reflection, inducing general ideas 
independently of each individual. This is the spirit 
of the natural sciences; their principle, as we 1; 
said, is to consider nature in itself, and to make 
abstraction from the effect produced upon any man 
in particular. 

We see. by this that the savant changed the pri- 
mitive direction of the human mind, and carried 
its activity to inquire into causes, to divert it from 
the care of representing the first impressions arising 
out of the appearances of the universe. But when 
sciences are in their nativity ; whether endowed 
witli greater force of imagination in seeking the 
employ, or enchanted with the novel instrument 
discovered, he exaggerates the power, man bears 
into tin; explanation of the phenomena a spirit 
productive and impatient, which, unable to at- 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 149 

tain to a knowledge of nature, hastily guesses 
at it. 

That epoch originates numberless systems and 
ingenious hypotheses ; sciences constructed from 
few facts ; each submitting them to his own no- 
tions ; each day seeing them destroyed, and again 
springing up under another form. Such was the first 
progress of the sciences among the Greeks, who 
described with poesy and eloquence. 

The talent of Buffon had more than one resem- 
blance to that which animated the philosophers of 
Greece, whose imagination was so vivid and so 
bold. He angered himself against those who de- 
sired to make the history of nature a simple no- 
menclature, and a collection of facts, united together 
by artificial bonds. The zeal of his spirit applied itself 
to penetrate suddenly into the principles of nature, 
to reveal its secret ; and likewise to offer it under 
picturesque relations. Such was the double use 
BufFon made of his eloquence. 

The character and habits of animals, the aspect 
and features of countries, were traced by his pencil 
with an inconceivable magic. The frequently vague 
impression that we experience, on the first view of 
objects, is, by him, reproduced with a precision and 
simplicity that astonishes every moment. In reading 
Buffon, we feel anew that which we have often ex- 
perienced without well defining it ; again, the feel- 
ings arise, that the horse galloping over a meadow, 



150 A TABLEAU OF 

oi the ass betting with patience its burthen, had 

excited. The picture of eternal snows freezes our 
seniea ; and, when he represents the muddy 
swamps of South America, a profound impression 
of disgust and horror entirely seizes us. No 
painter speaks more to the imagination than 
BufYon. His language, in which some persons 
cannot find traces either of art or patience, is 
notwithstanding the faithful representation of the 
most lively feelings, often so true, that the reader 
is as much excited as if the author had intended 
to paint the effects of the passions. When he 
depicts with justice and depth, we feel in our 
heart the least of its movements. 

The style of BufTon is not less perfect when he 
ascends to general causes, and when he exposes 
his brilliant hypothesis ; it is then splendid and 
simply persuasive ; he participates in the grandeur 
of his subject ; the examples and observations upon 
facts are engrafted insensibly with the theory. No- 
thing in his discourses seems laboured ; they have 
something at once serious and elevated ; they are 
worthy, but not ambitious. The author appears, 
by an extensive view, to include all nature, and 
not overpowered by the spectacle, although he 
appreciates its grandeur ; in a word, no writer of 
the eighteenth century speaks finer language than 
BufTon, or, more properly speaking, had grander 
thoughts. He approaches, nearer than any other, 
the authors of the preceding era, who disposed of 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 151 

language so boldly, and, in a manner, to engrave 
the features of their heart and thoughts; though 
Buffon treated subjects with a less profound and 
less general interest. We remark in the science 
and writings of Buffon, traces of the epoch. A 
century before a writer had been similarly occu- 
pied in the study of nature. Descartes had like- 
wise the noble desire to understand it ; but that 
which most occupied his spirit was, the union 
of the moral with the physical nature. He em- 
ployed himself unremittingly to find their com- 
mon centre ; and, in reading his works, we see 
how much that important question weighed upon 
his mind. Pascal reproached him with having 
done his utmost to exclude the Deity from his 
system, not thinking that such a genius could not 
render a more transcendant homage to the Divine 
Being than by all moral ideas, which only could 
unite themselves to that Great First Source. 
Buffon, placed in another epoch, only considered 
physical nature. We were tired of the loftier 
study ; mind had taken another direction ; it had 
reached to the exclusion of the Deity, or, at least, 
the mention of Him was discarded from all the 
writings of philosophers ; those who resorted to 
the great question were inclined to admit one 
single nature only, the physical nature. Buffon 
held himself entirely estranged from such a sub- 
ject, and, in spite of the greatness of his spirit, 
shewed himself little animated by a desire to engage 



159 I TABU \r OF 

in it. After Buffon, the Bciences began to depart 
from the track they had followed ; they entered 
upon the almost absolute dominion of experience ; 
they lost the contemplative character, to acquire 
the character of accurate observation. In that 
career they made rapid progress ; became prac- 
tical ; were allied to the arts ; their study required 
less talent ; a greater number of persons might 
learn them ; the ambition of savants aspired to 
less important discoveries ; but they nevertheless 
attained to a greater certainty. It was thus that, 
in their turn, they threw a sparkling lustre upon 
France, so much honoured by its literature in the 
preceding period. 

But this is not a reason to disdain the aspect 
under which Buffon viewed science ; or to reduce 
the glory, yet so great, of an eloquent writer and 
inimitable painter. 

The desire to explain, the curiosity into causes, 
the love for general theories, form the first and ne- 
cessary aliment of the sciences ; it is because we 
hope to reveal some great secret of nature, that we 
feel an ardour to learn its details ; the hope be- 
comes emulation. If to have a strong desire for 
an hypothesis be injurious to knowledge, the 
despair of forming a system hurts it much more ; 
since by that, we lose courage to observe facts, as 
well as the means of uniting them together. If, 
then, we constantly decry the spirit of theory ; if 
we be armed with ridicule and contempt against 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 153 

him who exercises his imagination, and, at the same 
time, his faculty to observe, we shall destroy the 
germ and principle of warmth by which the sciences 
live ; we shall break the thread that conducts 
through the labyrinth of observed facts ; and the 
mind will lose, by degrees, a curiosity that no 
longer expects gratification. Savants will become 
the manipulators destined to aid the practice of 
the mechanical arts, and the human mind will 
find itself withered in that branch of its activity. 

Few writers have attempted to imitate Buffon. 
Bailly, who was more known by his misfortunes 
than his works, has since desired to give to science 
the charms of style ; he could not see that the 
principal talent of BufTon was a rich and power- 
ful imagination ; and did his utmost to supply a 
prodigality of ornament that was far from pro- 
ducing the same effects. 

Now we have travelled over the most brilliant 
epoch of the eighteenth century, we shall have no 
more to notice any of those men of genius who 
illustrated their country and their times. The old 
age of Voltaire, BufTon, Rousseau, saw nothing 
exalted enough to resemble them. But the second 
rank was occupied by writers who merited some 
reputation. 



154 A TABLEAU OF 



CHAPTER IX. 



The drama was the branch of literature most sen- 
sible of the decadency ; it required, more than 
any other, a lively imagination and true feelings. 
Labour, reflection, and study could not of them- 
selves form the genuine character of dramatic 
poetry. To suppose the attainment of a profound 
knowledge of the human heart, that knowledge 
would yet remain sterile, were it produced by a 
far-fetched examination, and if there were not 
something instinctive to give the author a faculty 
of depicting personages from the imagination, and 
not by theory. 

When we make tragedy or comedy with the 
memory of those who have calculated characters, 
situations, and effects ; when we regard the drama 
as a work of art, whose perfection depends more or 
less upon an industrious practice ; we cannot hope 
for a prolonged success. On glancing further, we 
shall perceive that the works of our great dra- 
matic poets remain alone, or nearly so, upon the 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 155 

stage ; and we shall successively find those dis- 
appear who had them chalked out as their models. 

Comedy had finished with Gresset. Even be- 
fore his time, we had heard a certain precious jar- 
gon, formed by an endeavour to describe the 
language of a society, in which every thing, even 
to the feelings, was submitted to the empire of the 
mode ; in which frivolity had its pedants ; careless- 
ness its demonstrations ; and in which impertinence 
seemed prescribed by some, and courted by others. 

To paint affectation superficially is, doubtless, 
an easy task ; it was that of the comic authors. 
By the side of their ephemeral comedies, dramas, 
imitated by Diderot, showed another species of 
affectation. Exaggeration of sentiment ; pomp of 
words ; the mania of rendering mean personages 
solemn ; and of ennobling that which seemed de- 
based by situation ; such were the features of that 
kind of work. Scarcely any have survived ; and, 
were they not testimonies to the spirit of the times, 
it would be unnecessary to mention them. Colle 
was an author who has left only a few marks of 
his talent, and shews that he knew much better 
than his contemporaries what comedy ought to be. 

In tragedy, two writers had a success that yet 
survives them. Lemierre was remarkable for a 
sort of nerve of expression, which was not, how- 
ever, from warmth of feeling, for he could neither 
draw a character, nor delineate a situation ; but in 
his rude, though not natural style, we meet him in 



156 A TABLE U I 

portions where the declamation neither wants 
strength nor height. 

Dubellov was happier ; he takes shelter with 
names illustrious and clear to Prance; he reminds 
us of our ancient and glorious souvenirs. Per- 
haps our brave chevaliers, their noble deeds of 
arms, their simple virtues, and all the history of the 
old times of our country, should have inspired Du- 
belloy in a truer manner, and withheld him from 
those pompous declamations into which he fell. 

We delight to meet again with some of the fea- 
tures of those periods and persons that he desired 
to sketch, and whose names alone succeed so well 
in subjugating us ; but, at the time he wrote, we 
had a great taste for the pomp of words. Voltaire 
himself did not always preserve his tragic heroes 
from that defect. 

Colardeau had, perhaps, a genius more con- 
formed to poetry than the authors of whom we 
have spoken ; nevertheless, he was inferior to them 
in the dramatic art ; and his talent displayed itself 
with more success in another career. He had not 
strength enough to conceive a vast subject ; his 
mind was not struck with the ensemble of objects. 

The sentiment exalted by passion, or enriched by 
the imagination, was not the source of his inspira- 
tion. Then he confined poetry to be nothing more 
than an elegant and careful expression of ideas that 
had nothing poetical in themselves. It seems that 
the light constraint to which one is subject when 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 157 

clothing the thought in the form of verse, fixes the 
attention more particularly to the thought ; the fact 
penetrates deeper ; it induces a more lively and 
delicate action upon the feelings of the poet, and, 
consequently, upon those of his readers. We may, 
at least, ascribe to this cause the charm of the ver- 
sification, although applied to such ideas as would 
be without effect in prose. 

This species of talent appears also suited to 
translation, where the thought is furnished by 
another, and in which the merit consists in re- 
ceiving an impression strong enough to secure a 
happy re-production. 

Colardeau was distinguished in both these styles, 
but has since been surpassed. 

Saint-Lambert, his contemporary, cultivated only 
descriptive poetry : he was correct and elegant, 
but had less facility and charm. 

Two poets, who died young, shewed, perhaps, a 
truer inspiration, and have left proud regrets after 
them — they were Malfilatre and Gilbert. 

The prose writers were more distinguished. Per- 
haps, none took more care, or put forth more 
claims, to arrive at eloquence than Thomas, who 
figures with some honour in the new school of 
poesy ; but he followed a false route. Not know- 
ing that eloquence is in the character of the thought, 
he believed it was attained in tormenting his style, 
to give it force and grandeur. He tried every 
artificial means of rhetoric, in order to give his 



158 A TABLEAU or 

language effect ; forgetting that the intimate cor- 
lespondence of ideas, with tlieir expression, is the 
only tiling which makes a lively impression. He 
likewise employed combinations, to appear a pro- 
found thinker ; lie affected to spread in his writ- 

3, ideas and relations drawn up from the exact 
sciences, or the arts ; but, as he possessed them in 
an incomplete manner, as he studied them for cita- 
tion, and not for knowledge, he shewed less science 
than pedantry. 

Thus, Thomas was sometimes affected and de- 
clamatory, while he thought himself sublime and 
touching. The themes he cultivated also tended 
to throw him into those defects. The funeral ora- 
tion, delivered in a church, surrounded by all the 
pomp of religion and death, finds itself supported 
by circumstances that elevate and excite the soul 
in a real manner. But the panegyrist who, to 
gratify an academical assemblage, tries, after a 
lapse of years, to produce similar effects, and 
would strike the mind by grand and profound 
words, when nothing disposes us to receive the 
impression, will fall into affectation. He is far 
from being moved, although he concerts artifices of 
style ; he cannot, therefore, touch us. The pane- 
gyric thus conceived is, as we have often remarked, 
a style essentially cold and false. On one occa- 
sion, Thomas had the good fortune completely to 
fix upon the true character of an elevated and 
moving eloquence. He brought forward the 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 159 

praise of Marcus Aurelius ; he transported the ima- 
gination, even to the place and the times in which 
the action passed. He placed us in Rome, in the 
midst of the funeral train of the virtuous emperor ; 
that empire, which embraced the universe, and 
whose fate depended upon a single man, he repre- 
sents to us penetrated with grief, and trembling 
with fears for the future : he showed us philosophy 
in tears; an army weeping for their chief; and 
tyranny, newly born, augmenting the regrets for 
expired virtue. At that time, in the midst of so 
vast a spectacle, solemn words and exalted expres- 
sions were in perfect accordance with the feelings, 
and produced all their effect. 

Marmontel likewise essayed to be a poet ; but 
left no other reputation than that of a prose writer, 
although that is well merited. He had a constant 
facility and elegance. The first chapters of Beli- 
saire recal the Telemachus ; and we regret that the 
author, instead of pretending to instruct the king 
and the people, as all writers then thought them- 
selves obliged, had not followed the true direction 
of his talent, which was to recite and to paint with 
fidelity. But he did not obtain so much success by 
his Contes Moraux, which describe with great felicitv 
the changes and opinions formed in the habitual 
order of things. He has been reproached with 
having copied, without taste or truth, the language 
of society at that period. 

He would learn if, in the midst of a depravation 



160 A TABLEAU OF 

of morals, words had not lost all modesty and de- 
cency. The memoirs and recitals lead ns to think 
tliis. The romances of Crebillon the younger, 
which are nothing more than vice clothed in impu- 
re and affectation, and which are not actually 
dable, had some success from their newness, be- 
cause they were full of accordance with the morals. 

Of the rest, Marmontel published other stories, 
in which he did not essay the reproduction of the 
passing tints in the aspect of society, and they had 
more interest and simplicity than the first. 

But it was in the Elements de Litterature that 
Marmontel showed himself to the most advantage. 
The desire to distinguish himself by a sort of revolt 
against received opinions, at first threw him into 
some paradoxes, which he defended badly enough, 
and which by degrees he renounced. The rhetoric 
just then adopted had borne the attention to the 
exterior forms of eloquence and poetry, considering 
them as arts, and had tried to indicate their pro- 
cedupe, so to speak, mechanically, to aid in the 
practice of them. In general, rhetoricians had 
little thought of diving beyond that ; they had not 
sought the union between the various changes of 
language and the correspondent movements of the 
soul ; and with all those circumstances in which 
the speaker and him spoken to find themselves 
placed. 

Fenelon, in il Les Dialogues et les Lettres sur 
rEloquence, w Montesquieu in " l'Essai sur le Gout," 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 161 

indicated this procedure ; they occupied themselves 
with the sentiment to which we owed the arts of the 
imagination, and not the details of their practice. 
The Abbe Dubos, in " Les Reflexions sur la Poesie 
et la Peinture," had followed the same direction : 
and so did Marmontel ; he analysed, with finesse and 
discernment, the species of sentiment that charac- 
terizes the different forms in which the productions 
of the mind invest themselves. He inquired into 
the causes which might influence the sentiment and 
modify it ; he did not apply himself to those rules 
which are powerless to form talent ; he learnt to 
feel ; to admire the works of the imagination ; and 
not to compare them deliberately with the standard 
prescribed by rhetoric, in order to judge of their 
conformity, more or less exact with the model. 
Whilst the older rhetoricians, in the height of 
their career and their technical language, conveyed 
to the mind no sort of pleasure, Marmontel pre- 
served, in his style, those lively impressions that 
contribute to our literary enjoyment. To read and 
to admire is in effect a feeling ; with the others, it 
was that feeling faithfully represented. 

It was to paint that kind of emotion particularly 
that M. de Laharpe excelled yet more than Mar- 
montel. He was also more distinguished as a 
poet. Some of his works are retained on the stage, 
although they have no original character, and he 
was sometimes graceful in the lighter kind of 
poetry ; but his renown reposes almost entirely 

M 



OF 

upon tli« obtained in criticism. Hi 

:i the journals, at different periodi 
of his life, those materials which afterwards were 
united together under the name of " Cours de 
Litterature." 

II did not, like Marmontel, engage himself in 
the general principles of literature, but examined 
how those principles had been applied in the com- 
position of this or that work in particular ; and, 
above all, exerted himself to reproduce the senti- 
ments to which the examination of works, sub- 
mitted to his judgment, gave birth. No one 
shewed more nerve than M. de Laharpe in that 
kind of style ; he was absolute in his construc- 
tions, which he embraced with pride, and aban- 
doned himself to them without measure ; no one 
ever yielded more to his own opinions ; his lan- 
_:e took an extreme strength and power ; and 
he often used the most animated eloquence to de- 
scribe the effect produced upon his mind by literary 
beauties and defects. 

But from such a description of talent results 
inconveniences that M. de Laharpe did not avoid. 
He bore neither reserve nor hesitation in his judg- 
ments, nor suspected that sometimes they were 
dictated by influences foreign to literature. His 
friendships, and vet oftener his enmities, biassed 
his strictures. The little flexibility of his mind 
likewise injured the skill and depth of his views. 
He only saw literature according to his own ha- 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 163 

bitual ideas ; taking the form to which he was ac- 
customed for a perfect type, he could not feel the 
beauties which entered not into that system. He 
likewise appreciated, in a very superficial manner, 
all literature ancient and foreign. 

We may observe also that the admiration of 
M. de Laharpe bestowed itself very often upon 
artifices in composition ; to the calculations of art 
that he supposed were unfolded in the chief works ; 
whilst he neglected to consider the feeling that had 
dictated them, the circumstances that had influ- 
enced the author, the character of his talent, in 
short, all that is the life and principle of the pro- 
ductions of the mind. It was, on the contrary, in 
this system that numberless critics of his day 
wrote whatever might be their opinion. There 
are few who have shewn so much eloquence as 
M. de Laharpe ; but many have shewn a much 
greater penetration and a more subtile and pro- 
found analysis. 

Among the writers in prose, no one applied his 
talent to that kind which belongs to the best em- 
ployment ; the era gave us no remarkable his- 
torian. We translated, with elegance, the wise 
and instructive writings of the English historians ; 
they w r ere the models of that method which had 
already been adopted in writing history, and which 
we noticed in speaking of Voltaire ; but they found 
no rivals in France. 

Nevertheless, the writers who were engaged in 
M 2 



1" 1 A TABLEAU OP 

history during the eighteenth century, were nu- 
merous; but the nature of the French philosophy 

ill accorded with that species of composition. If 

we would infuse a charm into it, it is necessary, to 

1 in the recital, to place ourselves in the scene 

that we would describe, to render it, as much as 

ible, lively and animated. 
For contemporary historians, and those who 
write from oral traditions, it is easier to feel and 
to excite that kind of interest. Those who set 
forth the history of ancient times, cannot attain to 
the same end but by a profound knowledge of 
written evidences. They should cast off the spirit 
of the age, transport themselves by erudition into 
the past, and make themselves contemporary. We 
should little exact such complaisance from a writer 
of the eighteenth century. He saw the epoch pre- 
senting too much above all preceding ones, to be wil- 
ling to descend for an instant. He would have 
thought it injurious to his judgment, and preju- 
dicial to his view, if he had essayed to partake, or 
even to conceive, the feelings of his forefathers. 
Besides, we had begun to have so grand an idea 
of human reason, and the point of perfection to 
which it had reached, that in every sort of study we 
sought, above all things, for positive notions. We 
I little to learn that which others had thought 
It about facts ; each would have his will at his 
disposal, in order to build upon that base 
an edifice of argument quite new. To hasten the 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 165 

moment when we might immerse ourselves in that 
creation, it was needful to reduce the greatest pos- 
sible number of first notions, and, more than all, 
to disengage them from any particular colour. 

It was thus that historical works withered and 
became an assemblage of facts without union, or a 
succession of abstract arguments reposing upon an 
insufficient base. In that way ignorance likewise 
began to circulate. In effect, to be much ac- 
quainted with the writings and labours of past 
times, we ought to have some love and esteem for 
them ; we ought to delight ourselves in all their 
details, and place confidence in their merit. When, 
on the contrary, we would only enquire into their 
substance, and disdain their spirit, we study with- 
out taste or order ; we persuade ourselves that we 
know enough, and we think that all is useless, 
because nothing appears to us agreeable. It was 
by this means that instruction became superficial 
in France ; we attempted only the quackery of 
knowledge, in order to support, in an apparent 
manner, the vanity of argument ; and with this 
pretended love for positive knowledge, we were 
never less nourished by a real erudition. 

By this rule, history was deprived of that which 
gives to the recital a lively and sustaining interest. 
No one composed a sketch conscientiously and 
traced with feeling. Some made abridgments or 
extracts, deprived of all the charm of the details, 
Their brevity seemed destined to aid the memory, 



, \r.i i \i of 

hut tin- design foiled ; lor we cannot easily remem- 
ber that which dors not Interest us. 

The president, IKnauIt, gare the Hrst model of 
thai skeleton history. His talent was worthy of a 
better employ. He found means in those rough 
hewn summaries, to make it apparent that he had a 
more animated and stronger mind than the other 
contemporary historians. It is that which will 
durability to his reputation : if his merit had 
been confined to the plan of his work, there 
would have been no reason to prefer him to his 
numberless imitators. Others gave more extension 
to their works ; but employed themselves to make 
a parade of their systems and arguments. They 
regarded facts as proofs ; and more important in 
the eyes of the historian were his opinions than his 
recitals. Condillac wrote many volumes in that 
spirit, and none could better make us feel his de- 
fects. 

Of all the historians of that school, the Abbe 
Raynal had the most renown. The success, rather 
than the merit of the " Histoire des deux Indes," 
imposes upon us the obligation to speak of it. 
Raynal, after some obscure essays, produced that 
grand work. Many persons boasted its utility, 
and the precision of the positive notions that it 
enclosed. It seems they were exact in all that 
had reference to commerce and the arts. The 
exposition of historical facts showed, on the con- 
trary, less erudition and criticism, but the illustra- 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 167 

tion " De l'Histoire des deux Indes," bears parti- 
cularly the character of Raynal's philosophy. 

Perhaps no author of the period failed to so 
great an extent of sense in the ideas, or measure 
in the manner of expressing them. It is difficult 
to conceive how any one could betray such deli- 
rium of opinions, or such ridiculous emphasis in 
words. Raynal held up to view those principles 
which were opposed to the good order of society. 
There were no crimes committed during the last 
troubles in France, that were not, so to speak, 
brought to a great crisis by that declamator. Never- 
theless, when he found himself really immersed in 
the disorders of a revolution, he showed himself 
just, moderate, and courageous. It is very unsafe 
to confide in opinions that are neither the result 
of experience nor reflection ! A writer, shut up in 
his closet, ignorant of men and their affairs, far 
from all reality, inflames himself with his own rhe- 
toric ; revolutions, wars ; the effusion of tides of 
blood ; the destruction of the people ; appear no 
more to him than grand spectacles, the ornaments 
of triumph to his opinions. He thinks it brave 
not to alter his notions, notwithstanding all the 
fracas of events. That man lays his pen aside, 
and becomes that which he really is, — the friend 
of peace, mildness, and pity. Himself detesting, 
from the mouth of another, the words that he had 
committed to paper. In civilized times, writing 
becomes a trade distinct from habitual life ; it is a 



168 A TABLEAU I 

situation enjoyed only at certain moments, and 

quitted when the duty is performed. In old timet 
an author was a man whom genius and circum- 
stanees brought to express his real thoughts, with 
more power than the vulgar ; by that means, lan- 
less prepared, and opinions were more 
circumspect. 

The historical works of the erudites deserve par- 
ticular mention. The collection of the Academy 
of Inscriptions, is assuredly a very honourable mo- 
nument to the eighteenth century. The character 
of the savans who yielded themselves to those 
studies, had somewhat of the ancient spirit of men 
of letters. Their pursuit alone occupied them ; 
they devoted themselves to it with patience, for 
the love of it, and not for the love of success. At 
the same time they acquired a sound criticism ; 
they disengaged themselves from that blind pre- 
judice, which the erudites of the preceding ages 
brought into every thing that related to anti- 
quity ; and became every day better known. 

They introduced themselves into the morals 
and opinions of the Greeks and Romans, and by 
that better understood their works. Instead of 
wishing to accommodate antiquity to the taste of 
the moderns, they tried to reproduce the colour 
and character of antiquity in all its purity : the 
system of translation likewise changed, and was 
ferred to that adopted in the seventeenth cen- 
tury. 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 169 

The learned were likewise devoted to researches 
yetmore interesting. Whilst historians and politicians 
neglected the old times of France, they made it the 
object of a great part of their labours ; they buried 
themselves in our ancient institutions, our laws, our 
origin ; they contributed to publish valuable collec- 
tions for our common right ; their imagination 
also, was not insensible to the souvenirs of the 
country ; and the literati might learn from them 
some powerful charm to recal the antique manners, 
the chivalry, and the naive poetry, of our bards 
and troubadours. 

If we were examining the literature of ancient 
republics, we should place the orators before the 
writers, and before those who had employed their 
talent to compose books : with them, spoken elo- 
quence had something truer and more penetrating, 
since it made, so to speak, part of the person : 
speech was for orators a sort of action, for they 
used it in the direct relations with men. It de- 
parted from the domain of the imagination, to con- 
found itself entirely with the character, the opi- 
nions, or the interests ; but in our practice, orators 
draw much nearer to the literati ; they have no 
arena, where eloquence might serve as a weapon to 
defend personal sentiments — where it might shine 
in the contest, and be filled with a complete reality. 
The men permitted to speak are always in a given 
position ; the character of their language, the 
nature of their ideas, determined before-hand, 



i I A TAHi . 

rhc oration is with them a part of the profession 
that they till in society; it is needful to con- 
form to its dictation, and not to that of the feeling. 
Nevertheless, a priest, who is always \mxm 

m his holy calling, whom the world never meets in its 
frivolous ranks, who, speaking in the sanctuary, has 
never enforced other words than the Word of God, 
must attain, more than any other, to the sublimest 
eloquence. Like the ancient orators, he speaks his 
true thoughts, such as, from firm conviction, he 
wishes to prevail over mankind ; for how much 
greater and more touching than all those that 
belong to human interests, are those words — 
" Death!" and "Eternity!" — Honour, liberty, 
country, the noblest ideas of men, are humbled, 
when we think of that abyss in which they are all 
ingulfed. 

Those were happy who saw Bossuet, embellished 
by his silver locks and many virtues, standing in 
the pulpit before the coffin of the great Conde, and 
consecrating the praise of the perishable glory, by 
associating it with the praises of the glory of the 
life eternal ! Human words had, doubtless, never 
been greater ; and we think that the imagination 
never could have created a sublimer spectacle. 

But the time for religious eloquence had now 
passed ; orators, and their auditory too, had changed ; 
faith was extinct with the greater part of men, and 
cold or timid with others. We no longer resorted to 
the temple, to hear those truths preached that were 



TRENCH LITERATURE. 171 

established and respected from deep and heartfelt 
conviction ; we no longer arrived there with feel- 
ings of conformity and sympathy : quite the con- 
trary — we were conducted there by a curiosity 
without good will. We came to listen to the Holy 
Word, but not to imbibe it ; we went to learn 
whether an orator could easily overcome the diffi- 
culty of speaking upon subjects that no longer 
obtained either belief, or veneration ; we listened 
to a sermon with the same disposition that led us 
to an academical lecture. 

To combat that unhappy propensity of minds, it 
was necessary that orators should be filled with 
zeal and boldness ; profound in the knowledge of 
religion ; and animated by a faith that the incre- 
dulity of the age could afflict, but not intimidate. 
But, by ill luck, the public always influenced those 
who addressed it, more than they influenced the 
public ; and, ordinarily, to please men, and to 
produce a more certain effect upon them, we en- 
tered into their feelings, or, at least, we sought 
not to wound them. Thus the preachers of the 
eighteenth century felt the effect of the prevailing 
spirit. It was with a sort of fear or reserve that 
they fulfilled their holy ministry : they dreaded to 
offend the world ; they endeavoured to get its suf- 
frages for their profession and their discourses. 
Accommodating themselves to the taste of their au- 
ditory, they avoided every thing that inclined to 
tenet 01 positive principles of religion ; they en- 



178 A TABLEAU 0* 

larged with more complacency upon that which 
simply had reference to human morality ; and re- 
ligion was employed only as a convenient acces- 
, that it was needful to dissemble, as adroitly 

as possible, in Order tO avoid derision ; they blushed 
at the Gospel instead of professing it boldly. 

That equivocal disposition could not inspire elo- 
quence. Besides which, their resources were sus- 
pended in discarding the tenet to embrace the 
moral ! Did they think it possible to replace, by 
causes purely human, the means religion furnishes 
to strike the imagination and to rouse souls ? The 
ornamented and worldly style, the elegance of fine 
spirits, — could they compensate for the resom 
which the truly Christian orator finds in the striking 
and mysterious language of the Sacred Writings? 

Pulpit eloquence lost its simple and almost com- 
mon form, which rendered the thought stronger 
and more wonderful, which stamped upon it a 
particular character, and drew it off from a union 
with the compositions of writers ; it lost also that 
powerful erudition which reminded us unceasingly 
either of the divine souvenirs of the Scriptures, or 
the touching remembrances of the first ages of re- 
ligion, the genius of the fathers of the church, the 
acts of the martyrs, or the devotion of the recluses. 
Preachers and pontiffs as they were, they became 
men of letters. And, if we would find the true 
character of sacred eloquence, it must be sought 
for, not among the greatest and most skilful in 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 173 

the church ; but with some simple and stern mis- 
sionary, insulated, by his habits, from all the in- 
fluences of the age. 

The eloquence of the bar likewise demands some 
attention ; we find in it traces of the progress 
of opinions. It had more reference to political 
events; and the direction it took, had, perhaps, 
more direct effects. 

At the commencement of the eighteenth century, 
advocates had forsaken the vain luxury of erudition, 
the pedantry, and the ridiculous bel-esprit of which 
Patru was already divested. Their language had 
become simple and serious; their plea had a grave 
and measured tone ; they no longer confined 
themselves to discuss from citations and authori- 
ties ; they were engaged in seeking, from principles, 
to make a base for their argument. It was by that 
species of talent that Cochin, Lenormand, and 
some others, acquired a merited reputation. In 
another branch of law eloquence, D'Aguesseau was 
distinguished by the same advantages, appropriated 
to the situation in which he was placed. He was 
elegant, suitable and dignified in all that he wrote 
as a magistrate. 

But a concurrence of things introduced, by de- 
grees, fresh changes. While writers debated all the 
questions of public right, and criminal or civil legis- 
lation, and discussed the rights and obligations 
of citizens, magistrates, and sovereigns, it was diffi- 
cult for men who, from occupation, were devoted 



174 



a TABLE U OF 



lu-li matters, to continue to treat them in a 
manner simple and positive. They very soon en- 
gaged in the development ol I views; to 
nd to universal i to establish a theory, 
ad of dJBCWMJng a fact. Legislative eloqw 
thus acquired a more extended interest ; it seemed 
stronger and more nourished by thought ; perhaps, 
at the bottom, it had less of true science, and re- 
moved itself from its real destination ; but it was 
susceptible of producing greater effects. It was 
thus we saw law and literature unite themselves 
together. The pleas of lawyers and the discourses of 
magistrates had a success as universal as the pro- 
ductions of men of letters ; and men of letters were 
capable of appearing in a career, to which a few 
years before they were strangers. The government 
contributed to give a new spirit to the bar ; and 
to make it, unknowingly, that which would render 
it hostile. Without being tyrannical, it would not 
recognise personal rights ; — in the midst of its weak- 
l, it professed principles of despotism the most 
absolute. 

In the face of the whole country, in despite of 
all the souvenirs and written laws, royal authority 
pretended that nothing ought to balance its action ; 
writ* ged to sustain that doctrine ; 

tnd we desired to fortify religious authority by 
3, in the cutting and irreflective 
spirit of military courtiers. The magistracy, which 
for two centuries had found itself, from the force of 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 175 

things, charged to defend the rights of citizens, and 
even those of the nation, continually opposed itself 
to that claim of which we had not preserved the re- 
membrance, badly as it seemed to accord with the 
incertitude and debility of government. It bore 
impatiently the opposition of the tribunals and 
contested the noble privilege to maintain the 
laws. Magistrates vainly relied upon the authority 
of souvenirs yet recent ; upon the morals of the 
nation ; upon testimonies written and positive : 
they were not listened to ; they were considered as 
rebels. At the same time, the learned and the ig- 
norant marvelled to see them defend their rights by 
such reasons. It appeared pedantic and gothic to 
seek demonstrations except from the general prin- 
ciples of politics, and from the nature of commu- 
nities. We soon obeyed that double direction ; 
the advice of parliament, the speeches pronounced 
by its members, the opinions of magistrates, felt 
the ensemble of things, and changed character. 

Thus, the magistracy, and every thing surround- 
ing it, was constrained to depart from the route 
which it ought naturally to have followed. Some 
particular causes more powerfully contributed to 
that result. While religion was attacked or for- 
saken, its defenders, as if they had taken pleasure 
in co-operating with its enemies, fomented the dis- 
cords and persecutions in its own bosom. Faith 
was enfeebled ; but self-love had preserved all its 
tire ; and the church employed the last remains of 



A TABLEAU OF 
to show intolerance towards a part of its 

children. Violent and arbitrary means were de- 
manded and obtained. The depositaries of tin 

laws saw with chagrin that they were violated, 
and strove to defend the party oppressed. Tribu- 
nals and advocates throughout the kingdom, were 

occupied in discussing the right that the govern- 
ment of the church had to exercise such power. 
The questions of liberty ; the limit of authorities ; 
the constitution of the Christian republic ; all these 
were debated, either with the weapons of erudition, 
or by the arguments drawn from the nature of 
things. Resistance on one side quickly brought 
exaggeration on the other. That controversy, of 
which we know so little at present, was one of the 
causes that most powerfully influenced the spirit 
of advocates, by giving them a great facility in 
treating of general questions, in furnishing them 
with weapons, and inspiring them at the same time 
with the desire to make use of them for attack. 

The suppression of the order of Jesuits was like- 
wise a favourable occasion for the eloquence and 
authority of magistrates. 

The examination of the statutes of that powerful 
order, and the doctrines imputed to it ; the danger 
t ( nee as a body in the state ; its influence, 
through instruction, upon the nation; — those were 
st ions of the highest importance, and necessary for 
the discussion of all Europe. Many magistrates 
were found equal to the part they had to fulfil ; and 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 177 

unfolding with wisdom the loftiest thoughts and 
most extensive considerations. 

M. de Montclar and M. de Castillon, at Aix, 
recal us, by the gravity and elevation of their elo- 
quence, to the best times of the magistracy. M. 
de Chalotais partook more of the spirit which was 
then abroad in the world, and relied upon the 
philosophical doctrines, in which his talent ac- 
quired powerful success. A little later, M. Servan 
shewed likewise the same degree of merit in the 
other questions. 

In examining the various kinds of literature, we 
have endeavoured to shew the progress of opinions 
during the first years of the century ; we have 
seen the march become more and more rapid, 
every day presenting fewer obstacles to oppose ; 
though efforts were made to arrest it for a time. 
We wished to raise a party that should oppose 
itself to the success of the literati, of which we 
dreaded the influence. Some trials had been 
made. Some comedies had been represented, in 
which we had vainly sought to throw ridicule upon 
those who had made literature their most powerful 
weapon. Some journals had been encouraged in 
their criticisms. In the Academy, discourses were 
directed against the opinions which then prevailed. 
But all those efforts were useless. Those who encou- 
aged them, subjugated by the fashion and the general 
train, were sorry to appear dupes of the factitious 
movement that they excited, and the first to ridi- 

N 



178 A TABLEAU OF 

cule their defenders. And, in fact, one party 
were without faith, and had no other motive than 
jealousy and particular dislike ; at the bottom 
they had the same habits of cynisme and frivolity 
with which they reproached their adversaries ; the 
other owed their sincerity only to a mediocre and 
narrow mind, which contested that which it could 
not comprehend. It was soon necessary to revoke 
those essays which prepared an easy conquest for 
the dominant spirit. 

We now come to the last period ; to that period, 
almost contemporary, which was terminated by so 
terrible a denouement. Here letters become less 
important in their detail. We shall no more be 
obliged to seek in writings for the general spirit 
of the nation ; it had become more active ; it had 
taken more extension and power ; it quickly began 
to shew itself in deeds. 

We shall have to represent a tableau greater 
and more animated of the universal disposition ; 
literary works became less and less important, when 
they were confined to repeat that which might be 
distinctly heard pronounced by the voice of a whole 
people. It will no longer be the reciprocal action 
of morals and literature, the one upon the other, 
that we shall have to describe ; for letters and 
philosophy can no longer be distinguished from 
morals ; they make a part of them. 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 179 



CHAPTER X. 



The end of the reign of Louis XV. was signalized 
by a greater irregularity in all things. 

That monarch was plunged more and more in a 
degraded life ; he brought, say they, a disposition 
to alter the posture of affairs ; and a self-love to 
show himself indifferent to it ; while all who sur- 
rounded him thought proper to imitate his absurd 
example. Thus all the respect which ought to 
attach to the government was destroyed. In the 
latter part of his reign, Louis XV. employed his 
kingly power and excited popular animadversion, 
which increased the contempt : it is peculiar to an 
unsteady authority to regard despotism as a means 
of safety. The magistracy had once more been 
called to account for being opposed to royal autho- 
rity. The public were filled with indignation at 
those acts which they considered as arbitrary. 
One writer became the organ of that resentment. 
Beaumarchais, in that particular cause, took for an 
ally the general opinion, and by that means obtained 
a success which had all the vivacity of the mode. 
N 2 



180 A TABLEAU OF 

His memoirs, as well as Ins comedies, are full of 
nerve, cynisme, buffoonery, elegance, and had 

taste ; and a singular melange of pride, with a 
complete absence of all dignity. 

What a deplorable spectacle! a nation adopting 
nu eh an organ of its opinions ; a tribunal in whose 
bosom Aristophanes had established his theatre, 
there to hold up to the public derision those ma- 
gistrates who, by misfortune, were worthy of the 
treatment ; and that which was more sad, a go- 
vernment that could neither be pitied nor excused ; 
a vicious circle, whence the hope of good could 
scarcely flow ! 

It was thus, in the midst of hatred and con- 
tempt, that Louis XV. terminated his too long 
career. It was witli a lively feeling of hope that 
we saw the new king ascend the throne. Every 
one expected that things would alter their ap- 
pearance ; every one believed that his views and 
desires would be realized ; the monarch was ani- 
mated by a purer zeal for the public benefit ; few 
kings had a more sincere and constant intention to 
live for the happiness of his people; but his mind 
and character were too feeble to have any deter- 
mined resolution : he wished to do right, but he 
knew not how to perform it. 

At length, to attain his end, he referred it to 

he supposed had the most knowledge. It 

then that philosophy thought itself arrived 

at the point of its ambition. Ministers were chosen 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 181 

from its ranks, and were called upon to fulfil the 
promises of their works and doctrines. They 
brought an earnest desire to be useful ; a sanguine 
love of the just and the honest ; a severity of power, 
and a great devotedness to their sovereign ; but 
they misunderstood the character of the nation and 
the age ; they were not able to defend themselves 
from the frivolous intrigues directed against them. 
Nourished by theories, they knew not how to 
adapt their opinions, or to adopt them without 
rioise, and, as it were, insensibly ; they could not 
essay the amelioration, without interruption to the 
habits, and without alarm to the self-love. In fine, 
their aid was without fruit ; a fatality was shed 
over all circumstances ; and all efforts were power- 
less to bring about the hoped-for good. Never- 
theless, the incertitude of the monarch, who seemed 
to acknowledge that a change in the order of things 
was necessary, though he knew not how to operate 
it, had directed minds with yet greater force towards 
that notion; each applied himself to the extent of his 
capacity, to the principles of philosophy and poli- 
tics. Confused notions of government, legislation, 
public economy, fermented all heads ; there was in 
the nation a vague desire of improvement ; an in- 
toxication in the knowledge acquired; a superb 
disdain for the past ; in short, an effervescence 
that was constantly increasing. 

Literature was regarded as the universal instru- 
ment, with which each thought it needful to be 



183 \ TABLEAU OF 

armed ; to be a writer, was to occupy a rank in the 
State ; and mind had become a power to which all 
rendered homage. 

Opinions circulated promptly throughout the 
nation ; every class, either from self-love or imita- 
tion, hastened to adopt the ideas of those above 
them ; and never were there more means of accele- 
rating the community. Never had literature shown 
itself more popular ; the minor theatres, the alma- 
nacks, the most ignoble romances, were replete with 
the opinions of the mode, and conveyed to the 
people. A traveller returned to France after some 
years of absence, and was questioned upon the 
changes that he remarked. "Nothing," said he, 
" save that what was once spoken in the saloon, 
is now repeated in the streets." 

Thus were all classes and conditions crammed with 
authors and philosophers. In the absence of senti- 
ments and ideas, the greater number nourished 
themselves with words badly understood and ill 
directed. The journals marvellously aided that 
tendency. In thus multiplying, they had ceased 
to be, as formerly, a collection of solid judgments 
upon sciences and letters ; — published every day, or 
at short intervals, they had acquired readers without 
number ; and, made with more facility, they were 
read with less reflection. By this progress so- 
ciety and conversation had acquired a great in- 
fluence. The pleasure of communicating ideas as 
fast as they grew, gave them more rapidity ; and 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 183 

to enjoy more quickly and more completely the 
effects, had propagated the mode of communication. 
The journals made intercourse common between 
thousands of men ; and taught them to think with 
ease, though without maturity. Thus everywhere 
disappeared the hesitation in forming an opinion, 
and the reserve in making it known ; each built 
upon his science or his judgment. In the meantime, 
that universal movement presented at the first view 
a spectacle fair enough. A general zeal for the 
good of humanity animated all thoughts ; we were 
lost in illusions, to speak the truth ; but they were 
not criminal. Much pride and vanity entered into 
all the fermentation ; but personal interest, pro- 
perly speaking, blended not its sordid calculations. 
The sciences were arrived at a remarkable epoch in 
their progress ; they struggled to be useful, and not 
unfrequently succeeded. In short, there was in all 
circumstances something more moral, and less de- 
graded, than in the last years of the reign of Louis 
XV. Just as we sometimes see, in old men, a re- 
turn of strength and activity, an unexpected spark 
of the fire of youth ; exhausting the feeble remains 
of a worn-out body, and presaging some violent 
malady. In effect, the public spirit aimed more and 
more at an alteration, without much knowing that 
which ought to be changed. From the throne to 
the last rank of the people, all wished for a new 
order ; there was a complete discordance between 
institutions and opinions. We tried for some time 



1 M A TABLEAU OF 

to make institutions bend; circumst&n< e op- 

j^osed; the thing appeared impossible; institutions 
fell. 

Ill the midst of the rumbling; noise, precursor 

f (he storm, literature resumed more vivacity and 
a truer character. It was at that time that the 
translator of Virgil, whose talent had already been 
announced with eclat, composed a work, in which, 
descriptive poetry was ornamented with all its 
charms. Then, and not without surprise, in the 
midst of an era so removed from simplicity of sen- 
timent, and a naive painting of nature, we saw, 
like a phenomenon, a work clothed with those co- 
lors whose usage appeared to be lost. Posterity 
would with difficulty believe that Paul et Virginie 
had been composed at the end of the eighteenth 
century. Without doubt it would guess that a mind 
in love with solitude and meditation, inspired by 
the spectacle of a creature, wild and almost spot- 
could alone have traced such a picture. 

It was during those years that two erratic poets 
distinguished themselves in a species which, until 
then, had been unknown in French letters. 

Comedy forsook the affected and ridiculous tone 
of Dorat and his imitators. 

Collin d'Harleville carried us back, not to the 

times of Moliere, but to those of Destouches or of 

La< haussee. He knew how to spread a soft in- 

it into sentiments expressed with charm and 

truth. 



, FRENCH LITERATURE. 185 

Fabre, his rival, had more energy ; but, in spite 
of his lofty claims, he was often nothing more than- 
a declamator. 

The only fables that we can read with pleasure 
after La Fontaine, were likewise composed in those 
times ; and their author was distinguished by more 
than one single work. 

Anacharsis even appeared at that epoch. Erudi- 
tion had not yet been consecrated to such an em- 
ploy. Instead of presenting the arid results of his 
labours and all the supports of his researches, the 
Abbe Bartheiemy put erudition into action, and used 
it to trace a living picture of ancient Greece. The 
tableau is as animated as if it were the fruit of the 
imagination. The long toil necessary to prepare 
the material, did not cool the author ; we find that 
he had before his eyes all that he had placed in his 
memory ; it is, perhaps, to that lively taste for an- 
tiquity in which he had so well transported himself, 
that his style bears some distant affinity with that 
of Fenelon. At least, it is certain that Plato 
sometimes made the abbe as eloquent, as Homer had 
rendered Fenelon poetic. 

A crowd of books, serious and useful, or at least, 
which tried to be so, were yet more in harmony with 
the general occupation of minds. Some men of 
condition gave to some subjects, which, until then, 
had been unknown to the public, an interest that 
was owing to the elevation of their ideas ; to the 
purity of their views ; and to the nobility of their 



186 A TABLEAU OF 

sentiment*. Among them, M. Neckar distinguished 
himself by a more enlightened love of morality and 
virtue; in the midst of that proud intoxication of 
human reason, his eloquence preserved a wisdom 
and a moderation unknown at the time. He de- 
fended the eause of religious sentiments against the 
torrent of opinions so much the mode; and gave to 
all his works a character of delicacy and elevation, 
of gravity and sweetness. 

We return to the disposition of minds at the mo- 
ment in which the Revolution burst forth. 

The movements which agitate the people may be 
of two kinds. Some are produced by a direct cause, 
whence results an immediate effect. Any circum- 
stance whatever that brings a nation, or even part 
of a nation to desire a determined end ; the enter- 
prise succeeds or miscarries. The Decemviri made 
their tyranny a burthen in Rome ; a particular 
event rendered it quite insupportable ; it was over- 
thrown. The parliament of England in despair of 
seeing the nation happy under the domination of 
the Stuarts ; changed the dynasty. The Americans, 
finding themselves oppressed ; declared their inde- 
pendence. Those were happy revolutions ; we 
know that which was desired ; they marched to a 
determined point ; and reposed when that was at- 
tained. But there are other revolutions that de- 
pend upon a general movement in the spirit of 
nations. By the course of opinions, citizens grow 
d of that which is; the actual order of things 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 187 

offends in its totality ; an ardour, a new activity, 
seizes upon the mind. Each is impatient in the 
place assigned to him ; and desires a new one ; he 
knows not what he would have ; and becomes more 
susceptible of discontent and inquietude. These 
are symptoms of those long crises, to which we 
cannot assign any direct or positive cause ; seeming 
the result of a thousand simultaneous circumstances 
rather than of any one in particular, that kindle all 
around them, because all are ready to inflame ; 
which at first inclose no salutary principle suited to 
extinguish ; which at length become an endless 
chain of misfortunes, revolutions, and crimes ; if 
the peril, and yet more the weariness, come not to 
terminate them. Such was the convulsion, through 
proscriptions and civil wars, that conducted Rome 
from the republican government to the domination 
of the Emperors ; such was the long agitation that 
Europe experienced at the time of the establish- 
ment of the Reformation ; that sanguinary period ; 
which was the transition of morals and ancient con- 
stitutions to an order quite new. These are the 
critical epochs of the human spirit, that accrue when 
it has lost its habitual temper, and which it casts 
not off till it have totally changed character and 
physiognomy. 

The French revolution offers a similar spectacle ; 
inasmuch as it was brought on by universal and 
connected causes. All the circumstances from which 
it seemed to result, were bound together ; and were 



A T\iu.r\r OF 

powerful only by their re-union. Besides, when 
been so vast, who can think that the 

Cause were small f When the least stone taken 
away from an edifice hurries its downfal, who 
would not conclude that it was ready to tumble 
into ruins? It is not the desire to torture an ex- 
planation of facts that conceives such a notion. 
What precise motive can we assign to our troubles? 
Can we say that any one thing in particular excited 
a discontent so vital ? Was it tyranny that gave 
birth to sedition ? Whence comes it then that au- 
thority had neither will nor force to repress it ? We 
should vainly say, that power confided to other 
hands had been better defended. The character of 
a government, we might even say of a sovereign, 
does it not depend upon the circumstances in which 
the nation is found ; and upon the ideas that are 
spread through it ? Are we to affirm that a king 
should use violent and military measures, although, 
for a hundred years, neither he nor his fathers were 
soldiers ? The army and its chiefs, have they the 
same spirit and discipline after a long repose, as 
after sanguinary wars ? It is thus we may convince 
ourselves, that a revolution, which changes the face 
of the universe, results not from the character of one 
man, nor from any step that he has taken. 

It was then, an impatience, as strong in its 
attack >, as it was vague in its desires, which pro- 
duced the first shock. Every one freely abandoned 
himself to the sentiment without reserve or remorse. 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 189 

We imagined that civilization and knowledge had 
weakened the passions and softened all charac- 
ters ; it seemed that morality had become easy to 
practise, and that the balance of social order was 
so well established that nothing could derange it. 
We had forgotten that it is not with impunity that 
we put the interests and opinions of men into fer- 
mentation. Calm and long habits stifle in the 
human heart an active egotism : but an ardour, 
that breaks out again when charged personally 
to defend its interests ; when the disorder of so- 
ciety remains a problem ; when it is not protected 
and upheld by fixed rules ; when those rules are 
destroyed ; finds the man himself, as at first, rough 
and hostile. That social gentleness that repose had 
given him, gives place to vices and crimes. He 
had been moral by harmony with the established 
order ; he finds again all his violence in entering 
upon the career of evil. 

Another cause augmented the warmth and im- 
prudence of opinions ; it was the certainty that 
each attached to them. In times peaceable and 
uniform, ideas and systems had a free course ; 
nothing counteracted nor opposed them ; we wanted 
experience, and we gave all our confidence to 
theory: but when stormy moments came ; when, at 
every moment, new and unforeseen events attested 
the weakness of arguments and predictions ; when 
we were one day mistaken in men and things, to be 
undeceived by a sudden information the next ; — 



190 A TABLEAU OF 

then we became less bold in our calculations; we 
dreaded to be mistaken, and we would hazard no- 
thing upon the fragile assurances of our own reason. 
Thus, we could not expect either prudence or 
moderation, even from men virtuous and wise. The 
idea of a complete renewal frightened us not ; the 
tiling appeared to us easy, and the result happy ; 
no hesitation arrested us ; the object of our wishes 
was not only to modify the existing order, but to 
create another. In a short time the destruction was 
total ; nothing escaped the passion to demolish. 
They little suspected that thus to overturn all the 
laws, all the habits of a people ; to derange all their 
springs ; to melt their principles ; is to deprive them 
of all the means of resistance against oppression. 
To fight, it is necessary to find certain points of 
support, centres of aggregation, ensigns to rally 
under; or we remove all aid. The nation was 
shaken piecemeal, and yielded, without defence, 
to every revolutionary despotism. Such is the in- 
convenience of a revolutionary enterprise, under- 
taken, not for a certain end, but for the gratification 
of a vague sentiment. If we had had to implore 
some privilege, some positive right included in the 
national charter, we had obtained it, and had then 
been satisfied. But when men at some great crisis 
require liberty, without attaching to it any fixed 
idea, they do no more than prepare a way for des- 
potism, and overthrow all that should check it. 
The greater proportion of the first artisans in that 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 191 

destruction were inspired by pure and beneficent 
views. Although the first of our public assemblies 
lost itself in many illusions, it offers, without doubt, 
a title to glory for France. It presents an imposing 
spectacle ; the reunion of men, the elite of the 
country, assembling from all points of its territory 
to discuss the dearest interests of the nation and of 
humanity ; bearing to it the noblest warmth and all 
the energy of their souls ; almost all sacrificing their 
personal interests, except that of their renown. But 
their exertions, having no happy result, appear to 
us sometimes vain and insensate ; the ardour to esta- 
blish principles, and neglecting to enter into their 
application, seems to us sometimes puerile. We are 
tempted to despise our predecessors as much as 
they had despised theirs. Nevertheless, we will not 
forget that it is easy to judge after the event. 

Let us endeavour to transport ourselves, in 
thought, to the times which first appear to us re- 
mote from these ; when spirits full of spring and 
energy desire occupation and movement; whose 
ardour inclines them to all objects in which their 
faculties are ambitious of an entire exercise ; and if 
we acknowledge that, in such a disposition, minds 
are liable to error and illusion, perhaps we shall 
also think that they have not, on that account, lost 
either magnanimity or power. Then we shall per- 
ceive how far talents distinguished themselves in 
that assembly. We may observe the character of 
public eloquence at the only moment in which it 



A TABLEAU OF 

could shew itself in France. We find in it the de- 
the literature and philosophy of the "cigh- 
iih century. We could desire in it something 
more simple and less declamatory ; we regret that 
BOme celebrated orators had not substituted the au- 
thority of a life grave and pure, for the warmth, 
sometimes fastidious and theatrical, in their dis- 
courses. But, at the same time, we will admire 
how often the speeches in that tribune were noble, 
elevated, and persuasive ; how far the philosophical 
discussion was profound and subtile ; how much 
activity and courage of character were displayed in 
the attack and in the defence. We congratulate 
ourselves to see France so fertile in enlightened 
men, and in friendship with the public weal. In 
short, we learn to draw honor from a moment for 
which some persons, dim-sighted or incredulous, 
would make the nation blush. 

But soon the spectacle changed : the movement 
spread itself to one after another ; and each desired 
to concern himself with the troubles. Ere long we 
. in the public assembly, men of a new charac- 
ter ; the greater part born in a secondary class, 
having lived out of a society that tames the charac- 
ter and diminishes the force of its vanity, by giving 
it daily enjoyments ; — enemies, envious and pro- 
voked at the difference of rank ; nourished from 
modern works and their theories, which commerce 
with men had not modified in their spirit ; but in 
which they had found wherewith to clothe, under ho- 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 193 

nourable names, those personal sentiments which 
they themselves but badly understood. Some, 
inspired by Rousseau, had drawn from his works 
hatred towards all that had been above them ; 
others had learned from Mably to admire an- 
cient republics, and wished to reproduce their 
forms among us ; some had borrowed of Raynal the 
revolutionary torch that he had lighted to consume 
all institutions — others, disciples of the fanatic 
Diderot, trembled with anger at the name of priest 
and of religion ; there were also some who would 
coldly try their abstract theories ; of which their 
pride desired the application, whatever price it 
might cost. 

Such was the second class of men who took part 
in the revolution ; there was no very decided per- 
versity ; blindness entered into their faults ; they 
gathered no fruit from the evil they did ; and were 
quickly punished. The talent of some among 
them ought not to be passed over in silence ; it 
showed itself most when their eloquence was em- 
ployed in excuses, after having themselves attacked 
so much ; and their language was then frequently 
touching and true. 

After them, the Revolution belongs no more to 
the history of opinions ; it yields almost entirely to 
passions and personal interests. The mask under 
which they were concealed was so grossly applied , 
that no person could be deceived ; many of those 
it covered could not realise the illusion to them- 
o 



a TABLEAU OF 

selves. That which they had done liad not even 
the excuse of infatuation or enthusiasm. 
Thus, having desired to treat upon the often de- 
il question of the influence of letters and philo- 
BOphy in our political troubles, we conclude at the 
moment at which they became as nothing. In the 
midst of crimes and of public calamities, literature 
could only enjoy a very secondary consideration. 
We must, however, remark one circumstance which 
seems peculiar to civilised times : no party nor pow«r 
omitted to gloss over its own acts and its sentiments 
by a varnish of reasoning. The strongest will always 
prove that he had right any way than by force. 
Sophism and declamation were constantly exer- 
cised ; speech was employed by all ; there was 
nothing that it could not justify, nothing that 
it did not praise. We found complaisant phi- 
losophers to excuse the massacres ; and friends 
of liberty to extol arbitrary power. Even poetry 
lent its accents to sing the most lamentable 
times of our misfortunes. It had enthusiasm at 
command ; and caused its voice to be heard in the 
midst of blood and tears. At that time there was 
little of the revolutionary literature remaining. 
je could have neither persuasion nor power 
in sucli moments. Art could not give a durable 
effect to an eloquent hypocrisy ; and even when 
that, by a fatal blindness, acquired a certain degree 
of warmth and passion, it seemed in our eyes, as an 
ItatioD produced by drunkenness — an object of 
disgust and pity. 



TRENCH LITERATURE. 195 

At last, with the century that convulsion termi- 
nated, which appeared again and again renewed ; 
one powerful hand came to calm the interior 
troubles of France. 

Europe, which had not contended with, nor even 
understood, the violence and the nature of our re- 
volution, began to participate in it entirely ; the 
ancient order of things, as if it had been condemned 
by an irrevocable decree, every where gave way as 
soon as it was attacked. 

The future will learn what morals, what political 
opinions and manners could grow out of all those 
elements, that the new composition has not yet en- 
tirely combined. 

Minds were not changed so rapidly as events ; 
much agitation and uncertainty troubled souls ; and 
left them for a long time unquiet and doubtful in 
their sentiments, their desires, or their opinions. 
Those who had been corrupted by long irregularity, 
could not all at once become better ; ideas that for 
a long time had wanted a centre of union, could not 
become secure or fixed : habits formed themselves 
doubtfully among men, who during many years 
could not reckon upon the morrow. In short, calm 
perhaps may be re-established in the physical world ; 
if it be permitted so to speak of the whole of a 
nation and the public affinities of men with each 
other ; whilst a lamentable chaos may reign in the 
moral world. Let us rapidly pass over again the 
course we have followed in our reflections upon the 
o 2 



196 A TABLEAU OF 

I of human intellect during the eighteenth 
century. 

The end of the reign of Louis XIV. witnessed 
the loss of those men who had contributed to 
illustrate that monarch. Deprived of the splen- 
dour which they had shed over him, he lost, before 
his death, through his faults and his misfortunes, 
the admiration and respect of his people ; he saw 
his work fall to ruin ; every thing had blended 
itself with his person ; and he could perceive that 
with his death, all would terminate. Scarcely, 
indeed, was he expired, than we saw the disorders 
break out that had fermented for many years. 
Licentiousness succeeded rapidly to the constraint 
which then ceased. Literature, that at first had 
appeared unable to survive those who had ho- 
noured it in the preceding epoch, revived again 
after a short moment of inaction ; but it began to 
take a new form ; its essence was no longer the 
same ; those who cultivated it, had no longer the 
same manners or the same spirit as their prede- 
cessors. 

Those changes shortly became more marked ; 
letters participated in the licentious spirit of so- 
ciety. An ardent genius subjected itself to all the 
-born opinions; at first to please them, and 
then to anticipate and give them rapidity; it shone 
upon the scene, and enriched it by new master- 

• 
etry, in its mouth, acquired all the charm of 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 197 

facility and elegance ; its activity attempted all 
kinds of success ; it mostly obtained it, and often 
deservedly ; its works had all the same direction ; 
they attest the spirit and taste of contemporaries. 
One writer, more serious and profound, concealed 
likewise, under a more secret covering, a great 
conformity with the general course of mind, and 
directed the public attention to matters of govern- 
ment and policy ; he shewed himself wise and 
skilful. 

Nevertheless by degrees, the fate of literary men 
changed ; they were become more numerous; had 
acquired more independence ; and occupied a more 
important place in society. Their vanity increased ; 
and their opinions felt the change. When it wad 
thought a duty to oppose, the resistance was feeble 
and ill directed : it only served to augment hos- 
tile dispositions. Public opinion, and the flat- 
tering reception of all Europe, encouraged them 
to unite together and form a sort of sect, whose 
members did not profess determined or uniform 
opinions ; though, animated by the same spirit, they 
tended to produce the same effect. 

In that sect a new philosophy was born ; man 
was considered under a different point of view ; a 
metaphysic clearer and less elevated was adopted ; 
it was thought demonstrable. Ethics and Politics 
marvelled to see their principles rear themselves 
upon the new basis. Religion was attacked with 
violence. All those opinions disseminated them- 



198 A TABLE IV OF 

Selves in the particular works of each writer; and 
unitedly formed one single and vast body of doc- 
trines, undertaken with serviceable views, but exe- 
cuted afterwards with another intention ; social 
order concurring marvellously with that progress of 
opinions; authority having no force, and without re- 
gular action ; the nation without glory; religion with- 
out apostles ; practical morality having disappeared 
even before the attempt was made to shake its 
principles. 

One philosopher separated himself entirely from 
the others ; and even declared himself their enemy; 
more eloquent and enthusiastic than all who sur- 
rounded him, he reached the same point by a dif- 
ferent way ; he attacked with passion the laws of 
society and the duties which they impose ; and 
although the defender of virtuous and noble senti- 
ments, he led to them by a dangerous route. 

The sciences which, at the commencement of the 
century, had proceeded with patience, but without 
brilliant success, became suddenly a lofty title to 
celebrity for the nation. One man, profound in the 
mathematical sciences, shewed us their progress and 
spirit, considering them under a philosophical coup- 
d'oeil ; and, perhaps, tracing the way for all those 
who have been so illustrious since. 

The natural sciences were embraced by a writer 
who exhibited them with genius, and lent them an 
eloquent language. After him, they adopted an- 
other spirit ; made rapid progress ; advanced from 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 199 

discovery to discovery; divided themselves into 
clearer and ingenious theories, and became more 
extended and useful. The new metaphysic aided 
all that success ; it was entirely conformed to the 
spirit of the sciences, of facts, and of abstract demon- 
stration. 

During this time, letters declined ; we no longer 
found spirits full of force imprinting upon them a 
new movement ; the dramatic art decayed ; poetry 
lost its grandeur and only preserved its grace. 
Prose writers were more happy ; they shewed sense, 
facility, and elegance ; and only weak when they 
emulated the attainment of the highest eloquence. 
A crowd of useful and instructive books were circu- 
lated ; knowledge became more easy of acquisition, 
but precisely, by the same rule, it was oftener more 
in appearance than in reality. 

A new reign commenced ; that circumstance en- 
lightened the desire for change ; we aspired to a 
new state of things ; all thoughts directed them- 
selves towards it ; and letters participated in the 
return of energy and activity. This shoot presents 
a noble aspect ; we love to dwell upon that ardour 
of so many virtuous men, enlightened for the good 
of their country : but the best minds lost themselves 
in vain illusions : never had we had more vanity 
and boldness ; we would destroy without knowing 
precisely why ; we would create all things anew, 
disdaining that which the past had bequeathed ; 
and our foolish pretensions were punished. Every 



200 A TABLEAU 01 PUNCH LITERATURE. 

thing way; nothing made amends; a long 

u of misfortune* brought experience to 
humble the pride of opinions, and to inspire a 
wish for At length, a new state of things 

arrired, which, utter some uncertainty of the hu- 
man mind, will take a direction that we cannot 
foresee, while we are troubled by the too vivid re- 
membrance of our past deplorable agitations. 

Thus the eighteenth century ran its course. When 
by the rapid succession of time, a great number of simi- 
lar periods shall have passed over the tombs of those 
men, and also over those of the people, the era will 
not remain unknown in the throng of crowded epochs. 
It will not be confounded with those which recal 
no souvenir to the memory of man. The march of 
the human mind, the point to which it had reached, 
were so remarkable, that they will always attract 
the attention of posterity. It was not, in truth, 
renown in which it fell short; and if it be per- 
mitted to form a prayer for the future, in which a 
feeble part only belongs to us, we breathe a de- 
sire that the age just begun — the century we have 
seen born, and which will see us all die — may 
bring to our sons and their children, not more 
i y and eclat, but more virtue and less misfor- 
tune ! 



NOTE OF THE EDITOR. 



Madame de Stael wrote, for the French Mercury, the 
following analysis of the work that we are about to re- 
print. 

The critic refused the insertion of the article, which we 
have recovered and now publish for the first time. We 
have thought that it would be curious to read the delicate 
and profound views that Madame de Stael threw, quite 
en passant, upon the subject. 



"The Institute gave, as a subject of competition, an 
examination of the French literature of the eighteenth 
century. It appears that the subject met with great diffi- 
culties, since that, during many years, none of the essays 
sent seemed worthy to obtain the proposed prize. 

" Perhaps the requisition was not rendered sufficiently 
clear to the writers who should treat on such a theme. 

" Was it the influence of the literature of the eighteenth 
century upon the taste, the fine arts, morals, religion, po- 
litics; or simply, an accurate nomenclature of the cele- 
brated authors and their works ? The first would require 



202 in 01 THE EDITOR. 

nip-d'ceil, philosophical, bold, independent; the 

I is the work of b patient spirit that puts, after each 
proper name an encomium or an ingenious censure. 
In the work we have announced, the literature of the 
teenth century is considered, in a general point of view; 
many authors are judged with a profound sagacity ; but, 
above all, the principal question is investigated in all its 
bearings. That question consists in enquiring if we are 
to accuse the writers of the eighteenth century with the 
misfortune of the revolution, or if their tendency were 
good and their intentions pure. The author seeks to prove 
that their errors were the result of the political circum- 
stances in which they were placed, of the laxity of the 
social principle, prepared by the old age of Louis XIV., 
the corruption of the Regent, and the negligence of Louis 
XV. But he thinks he discovers a sincere love of good 
in the general desire then experienced by enlightened men 
to accomplish that good by knowledge. 

"The author, in showing this justice towards the philo- 
sophers • of the eighteenth century, is not the less severe 
and pure in the judgments pronounced upon the laxity 
of morals, and the levity yet more culpable in reli- 
gion. We love to see in the opinions and character 
of a young writer, a happy mixture of austerity of 
principles and indulgence towards mankind ; but that 
which predominates above all, in the discourse, is the 
national spirit — the love of country ; we feel that the 
word Trance is all-powerful in him who writes ; he re- 
peats it to himself with delight. 

"Ancient France speaks to his imagination; France of 
Louis XI V. gratifies his pride ; France of the eighteenth 
century occupies his thoughts ; and France of the first days 
of the revolution seems to him to elevate itself to the 



NOTE OF THE EDITOR. 203 

height of eloquence and enthusiasm of a free people. 
This patriotism of sentiments and ideas, fortifies the public 
spirit, and gives to the talent of writing a national power. 

" Among the sketches that we have remarked, we would 
indicate particularly, a passage on the origin of French 
poetry ; a painting singularly spiritual of La Fronde ; 
reflections full of depth upon the reign of Louis XIV. ; and 
a judgment upon Bossuet, superb in the midst of all that 
Bossuet has inspired. 

"But, above all, we love to recal the morceau upon the 
Constituent Assembly, because that it appears to us to 
have already the impartiality of history. The author seems 
to have nothing to do with party-prejudice. We should, 
perhaps, do injury to a work, in which there are ideas 
in every line, to indicate more phrases. The brilliant 
pieces of enthusiasm might be detached ; but a continued 
force, an animated reserve, reflections that induce many 
other reflections, the knowledge that we perceive, and the 
yet greater proportion that we guess at ; must all be read 
from the first line to the last. 

" Perhaps we have never seen the debut of a writer in the 
literary career in a work more wisely learned ; and if the 
character of talent is to be young at any age, perhaps the 
character of his talent is, to give maturity to his youth. 

" Besides, the author of this work being destined to the 
career of the administration, cultivated, very early, that 
spirit of justice and discernment which belongs particu- 
larly to philosophical literature ; to that which makes no 
part of the empire of fiction ; that empire to which we 
must give life, and with it, all the passions that signalize 
it. The style of a writer is already known, when it is 
said that the ideas are new, original, born in his head, that 
a pure soul excited him, that his judgment is impar- 



Of Tin i.mtor. 

tial and profound; 'for the style? as repeated, with jus- 
tice, l)y M. de BaranU', ' is the man himself;' but 
must also agree that there is much correctness and 
iinatical precision in the work. We could have de- 
sired that the author had abandoned himself oftener to his 
own movements. For, much as we feel in the work of 

M. de I) , more warmth than he shows, we could wish 

that he had oftener said that which he has left us to 
divine. 

" His heart and his principles are extremely religious, 
but his manner of viewing things sometimes seems to par- 
take of the doctrine of fatality ; it is said, that he does not 
admit of the influence of the action, and that, with much 
spirit he says, referring to the Hermit of Prague in Shak- 
speare, that which t is, is/ 

"It is possible that the nineteenth century takes its 
character of resignation from the force of circumstances, 
that the all-powerful facts to which it has been witness 
might inspire. Nevertheless, when a man announces 

himself with the superiority of M. de B ; one is 

tempted to demand a positive direction. 

" ' Duty/ does he reply. Yes, duty in the private life, 
in the public employ, in which the end is determined ; 
but in the sublime route of thought, ought not the im- 
pulse to direct us to the character of the enthusiast ( 
Should he not be partial for or against — praise much, 
blame much, in order to possess in himself a movement 
and a will forcible enough to communicate it to others? 

" The eighteenth century declared its principles in a 
manner too absolute ; perhaps the nineteenth century 
comments upon the facts with too much submission. The 
one dwells upon the nature of things ; the other dwells 
on the circumstances. The one would command the future; 



NOTE OF THE EDITOR. 205 

the other confines itself to the knowledge of human nature. 
The author of the work of which we speak is, per- 
haps, the first who has sensibly taken the colour of a new 
century. He detaches and elevates himself above the 
times that were contemporary with his childhood ; 
he is posterity in his judgments; but when he should 
in his turn create, and be busy in the future also; he 
should feel the want, and develope the means, of exer- 
cising an animated and decided influence. 



A 
NOMENCLATURE OF FRENCH WRITERS, 

AND 

THEIR CHIEF WORKS. 



D'AGUESSEAU. 1668—1751. 
An example to Magistrates. — Wrote on Civil Literature. 

D'ALEMBERT. 1717—1783. 
Philosophical Writer. — Encyclopaedia. 

ARNAUD. 1716—1805. 

Poet, naturalist, dramatist. — In friendship with Voltaire and 

Frederick of Prussia. 

BALZAC. 1594—1654. 

Polite literature. 

BOSSUET. 1627—1704. 
Preacher, historian.— Enemy to Fenelon — Sermons. — " Eglise 
C itholique." — " Eglises Protestantes." — " Discourses on 
I oiversal History." 

BOILEAU. 1636—1711. 
Satirical writer, wit, poet. 



NOMENCLATURE OF FRENCH WRITERS. 207 

BAYLE. 1647—1706. 
Philosophical writer. — Critical Dictionary. 

BOULAINVILLIERS. 1658—1722. 
Historian. — " Memoires sur l'Ancien Gouvernement de France." 

BUFFOX. 1707—1788. 

Naturalist.— "Theory of the Earth." — " Natural History/' 

31 volumes. 

BARTHELEMY. 1716—1795. 
Antiquary, linguist. — " Anacharsis." 

BONNET. 1720—1793. 
Natural philosopher. — " Contemplation of Nature." 

BAILLY. 1736—1793. 
Naturalist. — Universal talent. 

BEAUMARCHAIS. 1732—1799. 
Dramatic writer. — " Barber of Seville." — " Marriage of Figaro." 

DES CARTES. 1596—1650. 
Metaphysician. — " Philosophical Meditations." 

CORNEILLE. 1606—1684. 
Poet. — The Shakspeare of France. — " The Cid." — " Melite." 

CHARLEYAL. 1613—1693. 
Poet. — Poems, in 1 volume. 

CHAULIEU. 1639—1726. 
Licentious poet. — Made Grand Prior, by Duke de Vendome. 

CAMPISTRON. 1656—1723. 
Poet. — Plays in 3 volumes. 

CREBILLON. 1674—1762. 

Powerful tragic poet. — ■• Rhadamistus." — ° Electra." — 
" Idomeneus. " 

CREBILLON the Younger. 1707—1777. 
Writer of romances. — In friendship with Lord Chesterfield. 



MENCLATURl 

COLLK. 1709— 1783. 
Comic writer. — The' Anacrcon of his age. 

( 'ONDILLAC. 1715—1780. 
Metaphysician. — Censured for scepticism. 

COLARDEAU. 1735—1776. 

Poet — translator.— " Eloisa" and "Night Thoughts," &C, &c 

M. CABANIS. 1756—1808. 
Physician — Wrote many works. 

DOMAT. 1625—1696. 
Writer on legislation, 3 volumes. 

DANIEL. 1649—1728. 
Historian — "French History," 17 volumes. 

DESTOUCHES. 1680—1754. 
Dramatic writer. — " Le Glorieux," — " Philosophe Marie," &c. 

DUCLOS. 1705—1772. 

Historiographer. — "Voyage en Italie," "Considerations sur 

les Mceurs." 

DUBOS. 1670—1742. 
Author of " Les Reflexions sur la Poesie et laPeinture," &c. &c. 

DIDEROT. 1713—1784. 
Principal author of Encyclopaedia — Wrote on various subjects — 
sold his library to Empress of Russia — gave offence, 
and ordered to leave her dominions. 

ST. EVREMONT. 1613—1703. 

Miscellaneous writer, 7 volumes. 

LA FONTAINE. 1621—1695. 

Fables, tales, miscellaneous. 

FENELON. 1651—1715. 

Preacher, moralist, tutor. — " Telemachus." — " Les Dialogues 
et les Lettres sur l'Eloquence," 9 volumes. 



TRENCH WRITERS. 209 

FLEURY. 1653—1743. 
Statesman. — " Ecclesiastical History." 

FONTENELLE. 1657—1757. 

Various moral writings. — " Plurality of Worlds." — " History 

of the Oracles." 

FABRE. 1755—1794. 
Actor, poet, musician, painter. 

GRESSET. 1709—1777. 
Poet. — " Yervert." — " Mechant." 

HAMILTON. 1646—1720. 

Miscellaneous writer. — "Memoirs of Grammont." — " Fairy 

Tales." 

HELYETIUS. 1715—1771. 

Materialist in its worst sense. — M De l'Esprit." — " De 

l'Homme." 

HENAULT. 1685—1774. 

Historian, politician, dramatic writer. — " Histoire critique de 

lTtablissement des Francais dans les Gaules." 

LA HARPE. 1739—1803. 

Tragic writer, poet, translator. — "Lyceum," or " Couis de 

Litterature." 

LA MOTHE LAYAYER. 1588—1672. 
Historiographer, 14 volumes. 

LA CHAUSSEE. 1650—1738. 
Antiquary. 

LA MOTTE. 1672—1731. 
Tragic and comic poet, translator. — "Ines de Castro." " Iliad." 

ST. LAMBERT. 1685—1765. 

Historian, poet. — Universal History, 14 volumes. 

P 



210 NOMENCLATURE OF 

MONTAIGNE. 1533—1592. 

Writer of essays and travels. — " Essays,'/ 3 volumes. — u .Tour- 
ney into Italy." 

MLALHERBE. 1355 — 1628. 

Poet. — Model for future bards. — His works much esteemed. 

MOLIERE. 1602—1673. 

Comic writer. — " L'Etourdi." — " Le Malade Imaginaire," 

6 volumes. 

MEZERAY. 1610—1683. 

Historian. — i( History of France." — " History of the Turks." — 

44 Les Vanites de la Cour." 

MALLEBRANCHE. 1638—1715. 

Metaphysician. — " De la Recherche de la Verite," and other 

works. 

M ASILLON. 1663—1742. 
Preacher. — " Discourses," 14 volumes. 

MARIVAUX. 1688—1763. 

Sentimentalist. — Moralist. — "French Spectator," and other 

works. 

MONTESQUIEU. 1689—1755. 
Counsellor of the Parliament of Bordeaux. — u L'Essai sur le 
Gout." — " Sylla et Lysimachus." — " Grandeur and \)v- 
cadenceof Rome." — " Troglodytes." — " LettresPersanes." 
— " I/Esprit des Lois." 

MARMONTEL. 1723—1799. 
Poet, biographer, moralist. — " Contes Moraux." — " Beli- 
saire." — " Dionysius." — u Elemens de Litterature." — 
44 History of the Incas." — " Encyclopaedia." 

M IBLY. 1709— 1785. 

•Political writer. — "Observations sur l'Jlistoire de France," 

15 Volumes. 



TREXCH WRITERS. 211 

M. NECKAR. 1732—1804. 
Writer on religion, morals, politics. — u A course of Religious 

Morality." 

PATBU. 1604—1681. 
Critical writer, 1 volume, 4to. 

PASCAL. 1623—1662. 
Metaphysician. — " Lettres Provinciales. " — u Thoughts u 
Religion," 5 volumes. 

PIRON'. 1689—1773. 
Poet. — "Metromane." — " Gustavus." — " Courses de Tempe. 

PREVOST. 1697—1763. 
Historian, novelist. — " Voyages." — u Manon Lescaut.'" — 
M Pour et Coutre," 20 volumes. — " Dean of Ccteraine," 
«\c. &c. 

ST. PIERRE. 1737—1814. 

Translator, poet, novelist. — "Paulet Virginia. " — "Indian 

Cottage." — " Harmonies of Nature." 

RACINE. 1639—1699. 
Poet. — u Alexandra." — " Esther." — " Athaliah." — " His- 
tory of the House of Port Royal." 

ST. REAL. Died 1692. 
An ingenious writer. — " De 1'Usage de l'Histoire," &c. 8 

ROLLIX. 1661—1741. 

Historian. — " Ancient History." — " Roman History." — 

" Quintilian, with notes." — u On study of Belles Lettres.' 1 

LOUIS RACINE. 1682—1763. 
Poet, translator. — " Life of his Father." — " Odes." — " Epis- 
tles." — "Dissertations." — " Reflections on Poetry. 5 * — 
" Milton." 



212 NOMENCLATURE OF FRENCH WRITERS. 

ROUSSEAU. 1712—1778. 

Novelist, politician, moralist. — Heloise." — " Emile." — "Du 
Contrat Social." — " Sur les Spectacles." — " Letters from 
the Mountains." — " Confessions." — " Le Devin du Vil- 
lage,'' 25 volumes. 

RAYNAL. 1713—1796. 

Political and philosophical writer. — " Histoire des deux Indes.' ; 

— " Essay on American Revolution." — " Encyclopaedia.'* 

LE SAGE. 1667—1747. 

Comic writer and novelist. — "Gil Bias." — "Bachelor of 
Salamanca." — " Le Diable Boiteux." 

THOMAS. 1732—1785. 
Panegyrist. — -various Eloges. — '.' Marcus x\urelius." — "Essai 
sur le Caractere, les Mceurs et l'Esprit des Femmes." — 
" Reflections upon a poem of Voltaire." 

VERTOT. 1655—1735. 

Historian. — Histories of Portugal, Sweden, Rome, Malta, 
4 volumes, quarto. 

VOLTAIRE. 1694—1778. 
Universal talent ; a wit, poet, dramatist, historian, satirist. — 
" (Edipe." — " Zaire." — " Merope." — " Mahomet." — 
" Algira." — " Mariamne." — »• Henriade." — " Charles 
XII."- " Louis XIV." — u Peter the Great." — "Mceurs 
des Nations.'' — " Philosophical Letters" gave great of- 
fence. 



CHRONOLOGICAL ARRANGEMENT, 

With a reference to the page in which the Writer is mentioned. 



Born Died Page 

Montaigne 1533— 1592.. 117 

Malherbe 1555—1628.. 26 

La Mothe Lavayer 1588—1672.. 12 

Balzac 1594—1654.. 12 

Des Cartes 1596—1650.. 87 

Moliere 1602—1673.. 13 

Patru 1604—1681 . . 173 

Comeille 1606—1684.. 12 

Mezeray 1610—1683.. 12 

St.Real 1692.. 12 

Charleval 1613—1693.. 13 

St. Evremont 1613—1703.. 13 

La Fontaine 1621— 1695.. 185 

Pascal 1623—1662.. 13 

Domat 1625—1696.. 63 

Bossuet 1627—1704.. 17 

Boileau 1636—1727.. 32 

Mallebranche 1638—1715.. 87 

Racine 1639—1699.. 13 

Chaulieu 1639—1726.. 29 

Hamilton 1646—1720.. 13 

Bayle 1647—1706.. 23 



CHRONOLOGIC UL A.RS M. 

Bora Died 

Daniel 1649—1728.. 2S 

1650—1738.. 69 

Ion 1661 — 1715.. 16 

Fleury 1653—1743.. 1!) 

Vettot 1655—1735.. 22 

pistron 1656—1723.. 21 

Fontenelle 1657—1757.. 30 

Poulainvilliers 1658—1722 . . 126 

Rollin 1661—1741.. 19 

Masillon 1663—1742.. 17 

LeSage 1667—1747.. 21 

D'Aguesseau 1668—1751.. 19 

Dubos 1670—1742 . . 126 

Lamotte 1672—1731.. 31 

illon 1674—1762.. 25 

Destouches 1680—1754.. 68 

Louis Racine 1682—1763.. 66 

-imbert 1685— 1765. . 157 

Henault 1685—1774 . . 166 

Marivaux 1688—1763.. 70 

Montesquieu 1689—1755.. 54 

Piron 1689—1773.. 68 

Voltaire 1694—1778.. 34 

Prevost 1697—1763.. 72 

Duclos 1705—1772.. 98 

Crebillon the Younger 1707— 1777.. 160 

Baffin 1707—1788 . . 147 

let 1709—1777.. 69 

Colle 1709— 1783. .155 

M ably 1709— 1785. . 122 

Pousseau 1712— 1778.. 127 

Diderot 1713— 1784. .106 

il 1713— 1796. .166 

Ilcl'vctius 1715— 1771. .108 



I 

CHRONOLOGICAL ARRANGEMENT. 215 

Born Died Page 

Condillac 1715—1780.. 89 

Barthelemy 1716— 1795. . 185 

Arnaud 1716—1805.. 13 

D'Alembert 1717—1783.. 84 

Bonnet 1720— 1793.. 103 

Marmontel 1723—1799 . . 159 

Thomas 1732— 1785. .157 

Beauraarchais 1732— 1799. . 179 

M. Xeckar 1732— 1804. . 186 

Colardeau 1735— 1776.. 156 

Bailly 1736— 1793. . 153 

St.Pierre 1737— 1814. .184 

LaHarpe 1739— 1803.. 161 

Fabre 1755— 1794.. 185 

M.Cabanis 1756— 1808.. 109 



LINE OF FRENCH SOVEREIGNS, 

From the beginning of the Sixteenth to the end of the Eight* 

Century. 



\\( IS I. 1515—1547. 

Light of Reformation. — Epoch of French literature. 

HENRY II. 1547—1559. 

Embraced Protestant cause against the Pope. 

FRANCIS II. 1559—1560. 

Persecuted Protestants called Huguenots. — Civil and religion- 

wars. 

CHARLES IX. 1560—1574. 
Massacres of St. Bartholomew. — Peace concluded with Hu- 
guenots. 

HENRY III. 1574—1589. 

Civil wars renewed. 

HENRY IV. 1589—1610. 

10 heal disturbances, became Catholic. — Edict of Nantes 

granted privileges to Protestants. 

LOUIS XIII. 1610—1643. 
Civil wars continued. — Huguenots defeated. — Cardinal Riche- 
lieu humbled French nobility. 

LOUIS XIV. 1643—1715. 

Patron of learning and the arts. — Revoked edict of Nantes. — 

Cardinals Mazarine and Colbert. 

LOUIS XV. 1715—1774. 

inal Fleury's peaceable ministry. — Arts and literature re- 
vived for seven years. — Protestants persecuted. 

LOUIS XVI. 1774—1793. 
\ iter endeavours to alleviate distresses of his people, was obliged 
to submit to conditions imposed by Constituent Assembly. 
The spirit of moderation soon gave place to tumult and 
violence, ending in a disastrous revolution. 



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o emigrate to V 

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mined to produce a uniform Series, in the popular style of the day, and 
at such a reduced price, as cannot fail commanding an extensive sale. 
For the farther accommodation of the public, each respective work will 
be completed in 3 vols, which may either be procured, in separate 
Volumes, monthly, or in sets, of three volumes, as desired. 

The Series commenced with the Celebrated Novel of De Foix ; or 
Sketches of the .Manners and Customs of the Fourteenth Century. 

" Mrs. Bray stands alone amongft onr Female Writers of Romance, she aims at a [high 
standard, and accomplishes her object with a niasc uline energy." --Alias. 
" Mrs. liray is well, and deserves to he better known, for her Historical Novels." 

Quarterly Review. 

Now publishing, in foolscap ftvo. Volumes, price 6s., neatly bound in 
morocco cloth, and Must rated by upwards of thirty beautifully coloured 
])lates, 

Till: MISCKLLANY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
Edited by Sir Thomas I>hk Laudee, Bart. F.R.S.E., F.A.S. ; and 

Captain Thomas Brown, P.L.S., ike. The Illustrations by J. 13. 

KiDO, E*q. Member of the Scottish Academy of Painting, &c. 

i \Olume is devoted to the representations of that splendid 
and amusing tribe, Parrots, and is embellished with a Vignette Title, 
and a beautifully engraved Portrait of Audubon. The Second Volume 
will embrai irtment of Quadrupeds; and the following Volumes 

(which will appeal Quarterly) will be varied, in order that the Publica- 
tion may suit, every tfl 

Specimens of the illustrations of this very beautiful Work maybe seen 
at every Bookseller's in the kingdom* 



WK ^>WKTM 9 mJLiWMM JV,S5T3S) (g® 



CAPTAIN GRINDLAY'S VIEWS IN INDIA. 

SCENERY, COSTUME AND ARCHITECTURE; CHIEFLY 
ON THE WESTERN SIDE OF INDIA. By Captain Robert Melville 
Grindlay, of the East India Company's Army, M.R.A.S., &c. This Work 
is now completed in Six Parts, each containing Six highly-finished Plates, 
coloured as Drawings, with descriptive letter-press. Atlas 4to. Price 
21. is. each Part, either of which may be had separately : or the whole in 
2 vols, with beautifully engraved titles, &c. Price 111. 14s. neatly bound. 

"If there has been any foundation for the complaint, that the splendid scenery and the 
gorgeous architecture of India have never yet been adequately pourtrayed by the pencil, it 
will vanish when this work shall be known, which certainly eqnals, if it does not transcend, 
any antecedent production of the graphic art. This work bids fair, not merely to establish 
the fame of Captain Grindla}', but to do honour to the British arts.'- — Asiatic Journal. 

M The fidelity uf the representations is very striking ; and all the plates are most acceptable, 
as illustrating an extremely interesting and important countty, hitherto little known either 
b^' literary or graphic means. The variety of thefe views, and the handsome style in which 
they are executed, will, together with the appropriate literary descriptions, reccommend this 
publication not only to persons connected with India, but to the British public generally, and 
collectors in the arts." — Literary Gazette. 



Just published, in imperial folio, price 31. 135. 6d. plain, and 
41. 4s. India proofs. 

EASTERN AND EGYPTIAN SCENERY, RUINS, &c. 

Accompanied with descriptive Notes, Maps, and Plans; illustrative of a 
Journey from India to Europe, by way of the Red Sea, Upper and Lower 
Egypt, and the Mediterranean, performed in 1829 and 1830. With an 
Outline of the most expeditious Routes for an Overland Communication 
with India, Historical and Statistical Remarks, &c. By Captain C. F. 
Head, Queen's Royal Regiment. Dedicated, by permission, to her Ma- 
jesty. 

The Plates are' executed in the best style of Lithography by C. Hullmandel, and 
each View is accompanied with descriptive letter-press, and the whole followed with 
observations on the practicability of establishing a regular communication with the aid of steam 
vessels, remarks on the other modes of conveyance, as well as ou the routes across the 
Deserts of Cosseir and Suez. 



Just published, in Colombier folio, price 5/. 5i. with a Descriptive 
Account of each Plate. 

A SERIES OF VIEWS IN THE BIRMAN EMPIRE, 

Selected from the most picturesque Scenery met with in the advance of the 
Army, under Major General Sir Archibald Campbell, K. C. B., from 
Rangoon towards the Capital. Drawn by Captain J. Kershaw, 13th Light 
Infantry, and Engraved by William Daniell, R. A., in that able Artist's 
best style. 

The Subscribers to this Work are respectfully informed, that it is now 
completed, and ready for delivery, at the Publishers'. 



ifHemotr of uje earls ©perattons of 
THE BURMESE WAR. 

Illustrated by a Plan of the Neighbourhood of Rangoon. By H. Lister Maw 
Lieut. R. N., formerly Naval Aide-de-Camp to Major-Gen. Sir Archibald 
Campbell, G.C.B., &c. Demy 8vo. Price 3s. 



\ : : g .., .' ' .:-•..; w v; .::: ■• ■, ) 



THE NEIL0HERR1 HILLS. 
A DESCRIPTION OF \ SINGULAR ABORIGINAL R 

Inhabiting the summit of the \eili;hcrry Hills, or Bine Mountains ol' Coiiu- 

batoor, in the Southern Peninsula of \> Captain Hknrt U\hk 

\nn\. Ko\al S\o. Illustrated with lMates. Price 
nils. 
'* I In boot to which we .. , ittdl iDted lor a k now ledge of t', people, it \«r\ 

• hi extremel) valuable addition tu the itorei accumulated bj 

Mr Hillmm Jon.s, Sir John Malcolm, and Others, w ho hue directed their uoptu . 

luiU known, ami 10 well dasoMinj of attention ( in F.urupc."---.Jiiu<. 
J/fyf published, )■}■/(( l.Vv. plain, anrf'l\s. India proofs, 

FOl U VIEWS OF THE NEILGHERRIES, 

Or BLUE MOUNTAINS OP C0IMBAT00R: Drawn from Nature, and 

lithographed by Captain E. A. II'Cusdy, S7th Regiment Madras Native 

Infantry. 

This highly interesting Chain of Mountains, now the chief retort of Inva- 
lid*, from the Three Pre.-idencies of India, not having been hitherto por- 
tra\t d by tin- Pencil, the present series of Views, with the general description 
which accompanies rhem, will convey to the British Public an accurate 
idea of this very valuable portion of our Eastern territory. 

MILITARY REMINISCENCES, 

EXTRACTED FROM A JOURNAL OF NEARLY FORTY YEARS' 
ICE IN THE BA8T INDIES. By Colonel James Welsh, 

of the Madras Establishment. In 2 vols, demy 8ro. ll. Ki.v. bound in cloth, 

and embellished with nearly One Hundred illustrative Maps and Plates. 

" This work is beautifully printed, and beautifully illustrated. 'I he engrai in^s arc various 

and spiriti-d, and mi auinerons and characteristic, that, In tore «c glance over the whole, are 

cm hardly resist the jpersuasaon that we have lived in, and become familiar with, th< 

oJumee contain reminiscences <>f many interesting and striking events, and their 

nrnilis likely to obtain ■ large there of popularity. The field be 
i parallel in military splendour : the land I the scenes he 

tea, are calculated to excite ■ mora than ordinnri degree of public interest. The 
tdditionnl charm in the felicitous illustrations which are pr< 
at almost every other page, and which <i" infinite credit to the taste and genius of 
illj so numerous! so accurate, and all mi extremel) inten 
teel no little difficulty in conveying a i"-t idea of these skilful representations <>t 
which every person of the least glow of imagination must feel delight in contemplating. 
I In- author is a man of observation, and has applied his great powers to the recital and por- 
traiture of the many extraordinary circumstances in which ho was engaged, in a manner at 
once precise, clear and engaging. "—Last ladm Magazine. 

Tin; ANNALS AM) ANTIQUITIES OF RAJAST'HAN; 
Or, tl, '.LAND WESTERN RAJPOOT STATES OP INDIA. 

iprehending the Annals of that highly curious and interesting portion 
ot India, (hitherto almost wholly unknown), interspersed with Biographical 

■ f their Princes, eVe. ; the peculiar Institutions of the Rajpoots; a 

it the Author'- Travels, and his personal Intercourse with the 

and leading I i of Rajpootana, ice. I>y Lientenant- 

K.R.A.S., late Political Agent to the Western Rajpoot 

In I rols. im] illustrated with splendid Line Engravings. 

I . bound in cloth. 
aer the above! jual appeared one of the most splendid literary under- 

■ roduced ! Our aitonisbmenl h.is been very 

ityle in which this highly interesting Work is illustrated. 

mernui plates ire chiefly designed by Major VVaugh, and we hesitate sot to say, 

,.lin , and well brought nut 

is, if possible, excelled himself. The plates alone of this 

worth Mi.- price "i the Volume, which cannot fail 

-ras ol the aehk and the opulent. > ■■<• coy Gazette. 



wrs ssss'ffs, niLisiim £,: 



INBIA, 

Or Facts submitted to illustrate the Character and Condition of the Native 
Inhabitants ; being an Exposition of the Results of the East India Com- 
pany's Trade, in a Political and Financial point of view, from 1600 to the 
present time. By Robert Rickards, Esq. With a detailed Report on 
the Company's Financial Statements, by Mr. Robert Wilkinson, Ac- 
countant. In 2 vols. 8vo. price 1/. 17.?. 6d. bound in cloth. Just Published. 
" .Mr. Rickards' intimate knowledge of Indian affairs, gathered from a long residence 
in the country, and personal intercourse with the natives, and his no less accurate kuowledge 
of the varied sources of our commercial superiority, eminently qualify him to be a sound and 
enlightened guide in all questions relating to our possessions in the East. Information 
ought to be obtained of the actual condition of the inhabitants, aud how the monopoly 
operates in the hands of the Company in impeding improvement in India, aud in diminishing 
our wealth at home. For this purpose we can safely recommend the work of Mr. Rickards ; 
it bears internal evidence of candour and of industry, of great labour and extensive aud mi- 
nute research, and the stamps of a powerful aud philosophical mind."— Morning Chronicle. 

u These exposures of Mr. Rickards will do great good in preparing arguments against ano- 
ther Charter, and he cannot act more judiciously than in strengthening his views by quota- 
tions from the most undeniable sources." — Examintr. 

** The excellent volume lately published by Mr. Rickards may be read with advantage by 
every man who wishes to get below the surface of that system which is denominated the 
1 Finance' of the India Company, as it operates upon the native population of Hindostan.' — 

Times. 

In Demif 8ro. Price 3s. 6d. sewed. 

OBSERVATION ON OUR INDIAN ADMINISTRATIONS, 

(TOhI antr IBtlttanj. 

By Lieutenant-Colonel James Cailfilld, C. B. of the Bengal -Army. 

M This spirited and intelligent writer very sensibly dismisses theories, and refers to the test 
of truth. 1 hK i> :i useful compendium on our East Indian Relations, aud will be an excel- 
cellent companion to members of the legislature for reference on Indian subj-cts." 

dtnthman's Magazine. 

RAJAH RAMMOHUN ROY. 

AN EXPOSITION OF THE PRACTICAL OPERATION OF 
THE JUDICIAL AND REV KM E SYSTEMS OF INDIA, and of the ge- 
neral Character and Condition of its Native Inhabitants, as submitted in evi- 
dence to the Authorities in England; with Notts and Illustrations. Also a 
brief preliminary Sketch of the Ancient and Modern Boundaries, and of 
the History of that Country. Elucidated by a Map of India. By Rajah 
Rammohun Roy. Demy Svo. price 6$. boards. 



Also, Just Published, by the same Author, 

AN ESSAY ON THE RIGHT OF HINDOOS OVER ANCES- 

TREL PROPERTY, according to the Law of Bengal. Second Edition; 

with an Appendix, containing Letters on the Hindoo Law of Inheritance. 

Demy Svo. price 2s. 6d. stitched. 

" The learning, benevolence, and talent of this distinguished Rajah, render all the opinions 
which he expresses concerning our Eastern dominions, worthy of attention."— Athenaum. 

" It is scarcely necessary formally to recommend this work, the importance of the sub- 
jects discussed, and the superior qualifications of the author for discussing them, are ample 
recommendations." — Times. 

"Rammohun Roy's work must be esteemed valuable. Of its very remarkable author 
the public have long ago heard. His extraordinary literary attainments, his knowledge of 
our language, writers, customs, history, ice, are truly surprising, and afford a high idea of the 
intellect of the natives of India."— Metropolitan. 

000 

Notices on tfjc 
BRITISH TRADE TO THE PORT OF CANTON, 

With some translations of Chinese Official Papers relative to that Trade, 
&C &c. By John Slade, late of Canton. Demy8vo. Price 2s. 6d. stitched. 



TO0D2BIK8 flMEOSHVlTO 3PTDT3B3L.ICSIE3E3® 

£f)e distort) of tfir 
EUROPEAN COMMERCE WITH INDIA. 

To which ii subjoined, a Renew of the Arguments for and ■gainst the Trade 
with India, and tin- Management <»i it b> • Chartered Company; with an 
Appendix of Authentic Locounta. r>> Daniel tfacpheraon, Author of " Tha 

Ann. lis i.i Conn.!. with a Map of India. Price 16* 



THE BENGALEE ; 

Or. SKETCHES OP sociKI'Y AND MANNERS IN THE EAST; in- 
cluding Satires in India, fee. &c. By an Ovpicii in the Bengal Army. 

lO.v. gtf. boards. 
" It is impossible to speak too highly of this elegant ami uuprcN tnding public at ion. I he 

object of tin- Author is to present ■ picture of aociety and manners in the Bast Indies] 

and ITS »lo not remember to nave met with any hook of which tin plan is more ably ex- 
ecuted, or in which instruction and entertainint ut are more agreeably combined."-— 

Oru ntal Herald. 
M The work before us, we hesitate not to affirm, is one of the best— if not tin \» r> beef -- 
of the kind we have met with for many vears. It is most pleasantly written, and contains a 
felicitous admixture of the serious with the humorous. It is one of the very Jew books of 
modem production which the general reader will go through trom beginning to end without 
feeling himself thereby subjected to a species of mental drudgery. It will be read with delight 
by all acquainted with the Kuglish language : but as most of the articles have a reference to 
circumstances connected with India, it will possess peculiar attraction to those who have 
been in the East."' — London Weekly Review. 

000 

THE ADVENTURES OF NAUFRAGUS, 

Written by Himself ; giving a faithful Account of his Vo> ages, Shipwreck, 
and 1 in his first outset as a Midshipman in the East India Com- 

pan\ till he 1" ■ mmander in the Indian Seas ; in- 

cludi ! description of India, of the Hindoo Superstitions, Idolatry, 

and E i the Suttee, or Immolation of Hindoo Widows, ^c. fte. 

.id edition, 8vo. Price 9.v. boards. 

" From the extraordinary nature of the adventures described in the volume under this 
name, and the extreme youth of the author, we formed an opinion that the work a 
lection ot facta and oheenratione which had occurred to various persons, and were strung 
: , for the sake of uniformity, as having happened to a single individual. In this, 
irn thai we have been aaistakei ; for we nave received ■ letter from n . 
himself, affording us not only most satisfactory evidence ofhil identity, but such convincing 
reasons to rely upon the authenticity of his narrative, that v\e can DO longer entertain I doubt 
upon the subject, and we have only to say, that the certainty ot its reality adds greatly to 
the interest of his eventful ifc I ratrg <!<i:tlte. 

M If vmi wish far a pleasant travelling companion, or a friend to beguile a lonely or a 
tedious hour— -tf you have any desire to view an interest i n-, we might truly say, a wonderful 
picture of real life, read the Adventures of Naufragus."— Scotsman. 

000 

MY OLD PORTFOLIO, 
Or, TALES AND SKETCHES. By Hi.nky GLAoroao BaLL, Esq., Author 

,. r and \\ inter Hours." Post 8vo. price 9t. boards. 

: |fl rolume of intense and commanding passion,- -there arc pas- 

id acute sens. <,t i in- beautiea of nature, ---and there aie 
author is a man ofgeniua in the strict acceptation of the 

" A V arflowin| of the buoyant spirits of youth, a 

t and wild fancy, arc the characteristics or a mind 

Ain K s than its powers, in this work.' - --- 

** Mr. Bell is neitli oon nor a black hussar ; but as a literary li^'lit horseman, 

Mb Ilia duty, be has probably no equal among the 

I and cranks are more amusing tl, 
I 



Jrfotcfjes anTj ^collections of 
THE WEST INDIES ; 

With Notices of the Customs and Manners of the Inhabitants, State of the 
Slave Population, &c. Drawn from actual and long-continued Observations. 
By a Resident. Post Svo. price 9*. boards. 

" Here is a clever little volume, evidently the production of one well acquainted with his 
subject; and not a book manufactured iu London by some scribbler who never saw the West 
Indies, and knows nothing of them but what he reads iu the publications of tbe Anti-Slavery 
Association, or hears in the speeches of the well-meaning but mistaken persons who occasion- 
ally declaim at public meetings, or elsewhere, upon the hardships sustained by the blacks, 
and the tyranny practised by the planters." — Ackerman's Repository. 

" This publication contains much important matter ; and at the present moment, when 
the situation of our West India Colonies renders the fullest information respecting them 
desirable, we have no doubt it will be read with avidity." — Public Ledstr. 



A PRACTICAL VIEW OF THE PRESENT STATE OF 

SLAVERY IN THE WEST INDIES; 

Or, AN EXAMINATION OF Mr. STEPHEN'S " SLAVERY OF THE 
BRITISH WEST INDIA COLONIES ;" with a faithful Account of the 
actual Condition of the Negroes in Jamaica, Observations on the Decrease 
of the Slaves since the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and on the probable 
effects of Legislative Emancipation. By Alexander Barclay, Esq. twenty- 
one years resident in Jamaica. Third Edition, with an Appendix, con- 
taining such very important Additions as render the whole work, the most 
complete and interesting volume of reference that has ever been published 
on this momentous question. In one thick volume Svo price 14.v. boards. 

" It has been. justly stated by one of our ablest writers upon this subject, that " ."Mr. Bar 
<>rk is a Text Book, which ought to be iu the hands of every statesman, as by it alone 
this question might be settled to the satisfaction of all pw til . C tng reg mt w m m i Magazine. 

By the same Author, 

(Effects of If)* late 
COLONIAL POLICY OF GREAT BRITAIN, 

Described in a Letter to the Right Hon. George Murray, principal Secretary 
of State for the Colonial Department; showing the effects produced in the 
West India Colonies, by the recent measures of Government. Demy 8vo. 
price "Is. stitched. 

M The experience of Mr. Barclay in the West Indies ; his extensive knowledge of all mat- 
ters of practical detail connected with our Colonies ; and, above all, his extreme impartiality, 
integrity, and good sense, entitle his opinions to the respect even of those who are opposed to 
his views of the much abused question of Negro Slavery. Mr. Barclay argues the question 
very fairly ; his arguments are both reasonable and judicious, and we are disposed entirely to 
coincide with him, that time alone can produce those dispositions under which the use of 
liberty would really prove a blessing. This pamphlet discloses so many important and in- 
teresting facts, and is conceived in so fair a spirit, that it ought to be universally read.*' 

77i"e Atlas. 



THE SEAMAN'S PRACTICAL GUIDE 

FOR BARBADOES AND THE LEEWARD ISLANDS; with Observa- 
tions on the Islands from Blanco to the Rocas, on the Coast of La Guayra. 
General Instructions and Observations on Making Land ; also Observations 
on the Hurricanes and Currents, with numerous Marks and Bearings of 
Sunken Rocks, <Scc. All taken from actual observation, during fourteen 
years' experience. By a Captain in the Royal Navy. Illustrated with 
Charts, &c. Demy Svo. Trice 3.v. 6rf. 



works iB»<3»w*r]Lva' s vsklssisies) 



//< Demy Bvo. vttA ii/u*trattv< Plate*, pricg 15*. <•/<»///, 

i in \ \ i i i: i \\i) PBOPBB riB8 01 i B i 

SUGAR CAN 

With Practical Directions for its Culture, and the Manufacture of its \arious 

Products, detailing the improved Methods of Extracting, Boiling, Refining, 
ami Distilling; also Descriptions of the last Machinery, and Useful Direc- 
tions for the genera] Management of Estate*. 

By GeorgS Richardson Porter. 

M Wd ' "> r« iLiumiud the \<>lume as A most valuable addition to tlie library of the BOOM 

u ij India in, rch tat, ■ •> •roll ai tint of the resident planter."— Ltti rani Qateth ■ 

" W< . 11 conscientiously recommend tins important and excellent \\«>rk, i>"t only t«> the 
Kttentioa of th e e e more particularlj interested in the inhject, but ufthe public generally." - 

Edinburgh Literary Journal. 

\. trig ready, in Demy 8n>. illustrated with Botanical J'laies. 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST; 

A Practical Treatise on the Cultivation and Management of various Produc- 
tions suitable to Tropical Climates ; including Coffee, Cocoa, Cotton, Cin- 
namon, Cloves, Ginger, Gums, Indigo, Mace, Myrrh, Nutmegs, Olives, 
Pepper, Rhubarb, Sago, Tea, Tobacco, and other products of the East and 
West Indies, etc., capable of advantageous production in the various Colo- 
belonging to Great Britain, &c. By George Richardson Porter, Author 
of" The Nature and Properties of the Sugar Cane," &c, &C. 



THE BOOK OF THE CONSTITUTION, 

Containing, Magna Charta, Bill of Rights, Parliament, Councils, Royal 
Family, King, King's Duties and Prerogatives, Civil, Military, and Mari- 
time States, Corporations, People, Population, Revenue, National Debt, 
Civil List, Courts, Feudal System, Treason, Premunire, Habeas Corpus, 
In al by Jury, Poor Laws, Tithes, Head of the Church, Convocation, Dis- 
senters, General Assembly, Reform Bills, &c. — Giving a complete Account 
of the whole Machinery of the British Constitution. By Thomas Stephen, 
Author of " The Reformation in Scotland." Price (is. 

" A most useful constitutional epitome, and one for reference to the present time, which 
cannot be toe nni.-b < <.iiiin<iid<d. ElectOTC. Candidate*, and indeed every citizen, is in- 
terested in the matten •>« re reij plainlj MSI forth."--- Literary (lazette. 



Just publi ■ ->. 28*. ; Demy&vo* with Plates, on India 

Paper, 48*. 

CHRONICLES OF LONDON BRIDGE. 

L> Richard Thomson, Esq. Author of" Talcs of an Antiquary," &c. 

the only Accurate and Compendious History of the Metro- 

i.d, from its earliest mention in the British Annals; 

niculars of the Ceremonial of basing the First Stone of the 

, and is illustrated by nearly Sixty Engravings by the first Artists. 

number of Proofs hafC been worked on large India paper, 

for tie I mdon, &C. Price 81*. Vul . in a Portfolio. 

' library, and mil loaf remaia ;• sterling rc- 

■ ioa end refer* file. 



Just completed, in Demy Qvo. with Portrait, Price \0s. 6d. 

THE LIFE OF THE POET, WILLIAM COWPER. 

Compiled from his correspondence, and other authentic sources of informa- 
tion. Containing a full Development of his Religious Character — Obser 
rations ou his Depressive Malady — Interesting Details on the peculiarity 
of his Case — with Critical Remarks on his Productions;— forming a complete 
and connected Record of the Poet's extraordinary Life, and intended to 
remove the Obscurities whijh have hitherto hung over his Singular Personal 
History. By Thomas Taylor. 

" There was room for another biography of Cowper ; and Mr Taylor has proved himself 
a worthy compiler of the materials which, subsequent to Hayley's Life, have been hVving 
into the stock of public information. Me has taken a fair and intelligent view of the exceed- 
ingly interesting character of this most afflicted and yet most gifted Poet — whose name is 
uesttued to go down to posterity as the brightest poetical moralist that has ever fathomed the 
depths of the English language.'' — Spectator. 

Now ready, the Second Edition, price 2s. 6^. bound, clotJi. 

THE VILLAGE POOR-HOUSE. 

I5i) a Countrg Curate. 

44 The design of this Poem is admirable, and the execution of it spirited and % 
We have read the little volume with great delight at MOUg such good powers put forth for 
so excellent a purpose."--- Examine r. 

44 1 he author has drawn from .Nature ; his feelings are enlisted in the cause of the poor ; 
hence, the fidelity of his descriptions and th< I oil manner*."— Morning i. hronicle. 

" Wt recommend this little volume to our readers. It is full of interest, and will richly 

" 1 here is real poetry in this little volume, and many home truths are told in a terse and 
pointed manner: it is well worthy of perusal. ''-—Tait's M 

u 1 Ins little volume claims our attention by the high poetical talent it disjv 

Ptnny Mmgunme. 

M It it really refreshing to meet with a little volume such as the one before us. The author 
is a poet of very high order, and his unassuming volume is a rich treasure, from which the 
reader may gather much that is valuable. '— New Monthly Magazine. 

44 This is a pot in of extraordinary power. It is one of those deep-striking, rivetting com- 
positions, no one can take up without reading to the end."-— Court Magazine. 

See also the Times, Monthly Repository, Mttropolitan, ix.c. ace. for high characters of this 
work. 



THE LAST OF THE PLANTAGENETS. 

An Historical Narrative, illustrating some of the Public Events and the 
Ecclesiastical and Domestic Manners of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Cen- 
turies. Second Edition, Demy Svo. 12s. boards. 

11 One of the most faithful and delicate narratives that the whole library of English Ro- 
mance can furnish. The plaintiveness, purity, anil simplicity of the diction, and the 
monastic quietness, tbe unaitected tenderness, and repose of the incidents, must render 
this Volume a permauent favourite with all readers of taste and feeling. ''—Atlas. 

44 The 'Last of the Plantagenets ' is written by one evidently master of his subject, it 
seems to us the very language in which royal and knightly deeds should be recorded ; and the 
tone of religious melancholy throughout, suits well with an age where the quiet of the 
cloister must have had inducements to the war-worn and weary man, with which in our 
tranquil times, we can have little sympathy.'-' — Literary Gazette. 

44 This is an extremely well conceived and well wrought legend of the olden time. The 
iuterest of romauce has seldom been more happily combined with the verisimilitude of his- 
tory. The character of the aged and illustrious Chronicler is admirably sustained ; and it 
is difficult to withhold our credence or our sympathy, from the touching recital of his for- 
tunes. We confess that, on closing the volume, we found the illusion long resting upon our 
minds, that we had been conversing with a veritable personage of real historical substance. 
Altogether, the volume has afforded us far more substantial gratification than we derive from 
works of light reading. It displays more imagination than we look for in an Antiquary, 
with a large store of general knowledge, and is stamped with the genuine mark of a correct 
and elegant taste." — Eclectic Raicw. 



": .:■ A, • : .'" > ■■• .- . ■ ■ .^m'A.^ 

Just published, b§UUtifully illustrated, price Is. C)d. cloth eitea, or 10*. 64. 
till hound in Mc 

PICTURES OF PRIVATE LIFE, 

Bl BARAB STH IK El . 

!i BtickMJ '•> »i> honour to her m, ;iiul an ornament to literature. Wt wimlil place 
: mi -in in exquisite small lihr.irv , s u nil to - 1 1> ) >:i t li feelingl :unl tile heart's best 
.vluii love >nd chant v and hope to in I line to throw o\er tin mi ml th:it soft ;nul tr itujuii 
v;lov* onlv to In compared to thfl l:iter glories of the day." --\/,< riri/or. 

riuing volume, full of graceful and leniinin. ui ml hu -lastic sense 

" It is altogether such a work as i verv mother of .1 family would plaee 11: the hands of her 

children, and from which even thai mother might herself learn ■ profitable lesson.-- For our 

1.1 not hesitate to affirm tll.it lew, verv few works nuleeil, ha\e of In. 
r interested our feelings than that we now most 11 ufcigncdl v recommend to the 
attention «>t oar ti iden." •— ( !>• Itt nham Journal. 

predict that this Interesting volume will become an aniTersal favourite. -We bare la 
fact never met with a book, besides the Sacred Oracles, which might be more advani 

put into the bends of fOnng persons." •» llristol Journal. 

" This beautiful little volume cannot be perused without affecting and improving the head 
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they reveal the brightest gleam of ethereal light ;--- 

4 Allure to brighter worlds and point the way.' 
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tie offering to the community, than the passages which we nou 

from its valuable pages. The spun iii which it is conceived, and the ability with which it is 
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A FATHER'S LEISURE HOURS ; 

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THE FIRST DAY IN HEAVEN. 
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" Uli it if earth 
Be but the ihedow of heaven, and thing! therein 

. other like, more than on earth is thought ? "---Milton. 

by the Author for the use of B friend, and is now pub- 

I < milt to others. I he fragment of Cicero, entitled 

mnt; but the chief design was, to connect 

or. oh- in tin Natural Scirnces, with the moat important Mural 

Tmtfu. >i the end of the volume are intended fo guide the 

I moral and scientific works are so well calculated 

,l>j. < t. 



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WORKS RIEGSHVIk? IPWIB&ESIBS©. 

/y rendu, in one uol. 'u^t cited. 

MONTAG1 Ej or, IS THIS RELIGION? 

riTLIKi M. \.. author." I.ikr Ir.'' ami " B 

of a iew ami improved edition. 

rt command t 
their import. nit duties, ,»nd their ftwful rei uad to <>nr \. 

i nt advice end iraample, and duplayina' ia the moal livelj coloun tba 
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"Mr. Tavler is one of that class of writers and cl ergy m ea who will not lie QMlteni with thf 
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me shelf with auother holy volume, THE KECTOeU <>l \\M.lil\I) 

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rv one who wishes to he religious. Christian charity, meekness, and rue fit 
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Preparing for early Puhlicution, 

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A SEQUEL TO THE DIVERSIONS OF PURLEY ; 

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UTS' gMTH^ISs, ]HMd)IIIE ^.SSlS) (g©o 



On the 1st of May, Price 4s. 6d. Part VI. of 
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7 

ltbrarp of Original ftomanrr* 

I. Din. I) Bl LETTCH EUTCHIB, B8Q. 

\ uniform Series of Original Tales, Novels, and Romances, writtei 
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rolume complete bL.itseu, and equal In quantity to two \oli 



run r. a 



i\ SHILLINGS, KLE(;^ T 'nLY r uoyNl) in CLOTH 

* A/? M V - * 

T/ie Rrsl Monthly Volume, of the Series was published lust Nei 
Year's Duii, entitled, 

THE GHOST-HUNTER AND HIS FAMILY. 

P.y Air. Banim, Author of *' The O'Hara Tales,* 1 and is acknowledged to 

"the most tali tit ai and t xtruordinary work that hus Issued from t 
I or many years." 



The \t-rv graceful volume before U9 must sell by thousands to repay the cnierpi 
publishers for th« COSt of its production. Mr. Banini has put forth all the vigour thi 
to the old O'llira Talet, anil avoided the weaknesses that sullied In 



» iforis. He has |;one back to Nature, and slit has welcomed the return of her favourite 
with more than t mother's fondness. * * * The 1 ale is the best that has appeare 
season." — Athenorum. 

The Second Volume, published on the 1st of February, contains 

SCHINDERHANNES, 

THE ROBBER OF THE RHINE. 
By the Editor, Leitch Ritchie. 

"This volume calls for unqualified praise. It is elegantly written, abounds in striking in- 
cident, ami is, throughout, replete with highly-wrought end well sustained iuterest. In short, 
. idedly one of the best romances we have ever read, whether we judge by incident, 
character, or plot." — Courl Journal. 

000 

The Third Volume, published on the 1st of March, contains 
" WALTHAM," A Novel. 

•' We sincerely recommend " Waltham" to the perusal of our readers ; and most he -til > 
do we wish success to the M Library of Romance." .Many a flower, otherwise" born i 
unseen," will, we trust, be drawn from its obscurity by the spirited undertaking oS Mr. 
Ritchie." — Brighton Herald." 

000 

The Fourth Volume, published on the 1st of April, contains 

THE STOLEN CHILD, A TALE OF THE TTWN, 

POl NDEDON A CERTAIN INTERESTING PACT. 

By John Galt, Esq., author of the " Ayrshire Legatees/ 1 " Annals o " the 
Parish," " Lawrie Todd," &c. 

" The Stolen Child is a most cleverly managed story, with consequences and contri 

I do not think any one ever exceeded Mr. Gait in skctcning 
rvcd as it for a museum of natural curiosities." 

Literary Gazitte 
Autobiograpl ual to Mr. halt's best days, and even hiss >r 
eorded in the Annals of the Parish." — Athenaum. 
000 

The Fifth Volume mil appear on the \stof May, entitled, 

THE BONDMAN, 

rv of the time - of Wat Tyler. This work contains a Description of the 
the] ,. and of the moral and political condition 

hat interesting period. 



